Domaine Dumien-Serrette is the type of throw-back, traditional winery that you hope to stumble upon when you are searching for wines from the Northern Rhone (but rarely ever find). We met Gilbert Serrette in 2008. You can imagine our surprise when we walked into the cellar and saw an old basket-press. Our mood, and hopes, immediately rose. It was the same press that had been used by Nicolas’ grandfather and they were still using it to make their wines. 

The wines are made by the Dumien-Serrette family in a tiny cellar that is under the town’s church. They make approximately 1000 cases total per year, not enough to live off of without the supplement of a full-time job. The wines are a throw-back to a style that is found less and less today. Nicolas Serrette, who took over from his father Gilbert in the early 2000’s is making investments in the winery and adding land slowly in hopes to afford working at the winery full-time before he retires.

Nicolas learned how to make wine the old-fashioned way, from his father, Gilbert Serrette and Gilbert learned from his father-in-law, Henri Dumien. The Dumien name can be found mentioned in Cornas as far back as 1515. The Dumien family bought three and a half hectares in 1925, thirteen years before it became an appellation. Most of this land, three hectares, is found in the Patou vineyard, which has primarily granitic soils; the remainder is located in Les Savaux. The vines in Patou date back to the 1920’s, with some exceeding 100 years old. After years of selling in bulk to negociants such as Delas, Chapoutier and Jaboulet, Domaine Dumien-Serrette began to bottle their own wine in 1983.

They own mostly old vines and farming is organic, but not certified. No herbicides or pesticides are used and there is not much of a threat of mildew in the north. The vines are trained into arched two-vine canopies to protect against wind and hail. The Patou vineyard is very steep and Gilbert, in his retirement, but still helping out Nicolas, insists on tending the vines using a special cart he invented which pulls him slowly up the rows while he works.

In the cellar, they generally de-stem half of the fruit. It’s fermented spontaneously in cement tanks. The basket press was finally retired a few years ago in exchange for a very nice gentle vertical press, but thankfully the profile of the wine has not changed. They do not punch down, opting to submerge the cap with a grate for a gentle extraction. After malo, which generally happens before Christmas, the wine is aged for two years in two to seven year old barrels. It’s then bottled without filtration or fining.

In recent years, Nicolas has bought a bit more land, the reason they needed a new press. Serrette now makes Saint Peray, and an IGP Collines Rhodaniennes  Syrah that is just south of Cornas near the Rhone River. In 2023, he added one hectare in Cornas, but the vines don’t have fruit yet. And in 2022, they planted .25 hectare of Syrah in Saint Joseph, first vintage is anticipated in 2025.

The Dumien-Serrette wines are exceptional and in a class of their own. The entire Serrette family came to New York to celebrate Bowler’s 20th anniversary and Gilbert was so impressed to see their wines from their tiny village of Cornas in New York and sold throughout the United States. When he started with his father-in-law in the 1980’s, he never could have imagined this outcome. We are honored to be a part of their story.