Behind the vine

Nathalie and Isabelle Oudin - Domaine Oudin - Chablis, Burgundy, France

When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?

While our parents (and grandparents before them) founded and developed Domaine Oudin into a renowned domaine in our village, we never felt there was an expectation to take over. Instead, our parents wanted us to find our own paths, and discover new possibilities for ourselves.

I (Nathalie) was (and still am) passionate about biology and life science. I did a biology degree in France and then in England. While I wanted to study ecosystems and their interactions, my studies led me to proteins, molecules and things that, in my opinion, were too small. I didn't want to spend my life studying a single protein. In my late twenties, I started to drink wine in the city of Dijon with friends. It intrigued me right away with so many different elements of taste, history and connections to my studies. Suddenly, my interests led me to branch off to study oenology and I received a National Diploma in oenology (2 superb years for the master's degree).

For my sister, Isabelle, it's a little different. She is passionate about horses, and she wanted to develop wine tourism in the region. At the time, she wasn't able to develop this side of the business, so I asked her to help me part-time with office work and fulfilment. After a bit of reluctance around the physical work of winemaking and vineyard management, she is now a business woman who goes to the vines, prunes, picks and drives the tractors! :)

While we both wanted to leave our village when we were younger, we have returned to raise our children here, and work side by side as partners at the domaine.

What story does your wine tell?

Our estate tells the story of our family. The Oudin estate only began about forty years ago. My grandfather is from the village and had a few hectares of vines, like many people at the time in Burgundy. He was a winegrower, but he sold his grapes directly to négociants. Following several consecutive years of frost, he had to take up a second job and became a mason. The weekly pay was more suitable for feeding my mother and her 3 sisters. He nevertheless kept his vines by working them on weekends - working two jobs at the same time, helped by my grandmother.

My mother left home at 18 to find work in Paris. She met my father they found very good jobs with good pay in the city. When my grandfather retired, I was two years old and my sister was a few months old. Our parents decided to leave the stress of Parisian life and return to the village to start anew in viticulture. They started from almost nothing and they had to juggle starting a domain (with a small hectare) and keeping a second job in Paris to pay for what they needed. Bit by bit, they were able to invest in the domaine by buying a tank, a press, a first tractor. They ran their new estate and the management of the vines with practices that respected the environment. This was in the 1980s when the neighboring winegrowers had difficulty understanding their "organic" vision and the fact that my father was a stranger from the village!

Today, my sister and I cultivate 10 hectares of vines in the commune of Chichée in the Chablis appellation in Burgundy. Our wine tells a story of the choices of my grandparents and my parents, as well as our own choices in the key technical stages of grape quality and the resulting wine.

What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?

That wine is only for connoisseurs. Opening a bottle of wine, whether excessively expensive or cheap, is a story of sharing. We can always analyze it, appreciate it or hate it, but the most important thing is to share it.

What great things about wine do you think people should remember?

Sharing, the feeling of bonds between friends, colleagues and all the people who we choose to drink wine with.

What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?

I will give the same advice to a woman or a man! Never forget your convictions, be motivated (it's a very beautiful job that requires a lot of skills, but can be very cruel some years), trust yourself but also above all have fun!

I am a woman with grease under my fingernails because I do mechanics on my tractors, but a super male winemaker can just as easily excel in the delicacy of winemaking. Fifteen years ago it was more complicated, but today the path forward is clearer.

Who is a woman in wine who inspires you?

For sure, my grandmother and my mother, who acted in the shadow of the last generations of winegrowers and who are an integral part of this story. No Burgundian will tell you the opposite... It's up to the new female winegrowers to step into the light.

Where can women find your wine?

Our wines are available in many places. In the US, we work with Jenny Selections, a really great woman for wine in USA! You can visit her site or contact her team to find local options.