Chateau Pierre Bise

Claude and Joelle Papin-Chevalier started Chateau Pierre Bise thirty years ago. They control over 32 hectares of vines, producing a vast array of single parcel whites, reds and sweet wines.
However, it is his sweet wines for which he is most famous, and in particular those from the Côteaux du Layon.

At the core of the Papin philosophy for sweet wines lies three concepts: terroir, polyphenols and botrytis. It is his belief that a wine will only truly become a “vin de terroir” rather than a “vin de cepage” through the interplay of these three aspects; ie. in order for a wine to be able to express its terroir, it must be allowed to retain its polyphenols, which requires a rapid rate of infection by botrytis, thus, in his opinion, avoiding the cleavage of the polyphenol molecules.