It’s always a thrill when we get to introduce wines from a new producer. But an entirely new region?
The Hautes-Alpes boasts just 130 hectares under vine, or less vineyard area than the hill of Hermitage. Its tiny plots sit perched at high elevation, scattered across Alpine slopes between the mountain city of Gap and the French-Italian border. If the wine appellations of nearby Savoie, which climb the foothills of the Alps and are often noted for their steep grade, are considered home to extreme viticulture, then growing grapes in the Hautes-Alpes—seventy miles to the southeast, nestled beneath some of France’s highest summits—is nothing short of mad.
Loire Valley native Mickaël Olivon often traveled to the southern Alps in his youth to go rock climbing, but little did he know he would eventually make his home in the shadows of these dramatic peaks to become a vigneron. Despite having no family ties to the wine world, Mickaël always had a fascination with viticulture. After completing studies in Burgundy, numerous gigs in cellars in France and abroad, and a ten-year stint as an agronomic consultant in the northern Rhône, Mickaël returned in 2019 to settle amid the mountains that had captured his imagination as a child.
His minuscule cellar sits above the Hautes-Alpes town of Embrun, with his combined two hectares of garden-like vineyard plots flanking the upper Durance River valley on rocky soils of glacial moraine and dolomitic scree at dizzying elevations of 900 to 1,000 meters. Just south of the border between Provence and Savoie, the Hautes-Alpes shares little in common with its neighbors, in terms of terroir as well as winemaking traditions. “You need a pioneering spirit to make wine here,” says Mickaël, pointing out that local wines have seldom been produced on a commercial scale. The Alpine conditions present a number of unique viticultural challenges: vintage effects are amplified due to the unpredictable and at times violent weather, and accordingly, conventional vigneron wisdom does not always apply.
Mickaël produces two whites and two reds from a motley crew of grape varieties, including the native Mollard and a host of rare cépages more or less adapted to the extreme climate. With little winemaking precedent in this uncharted region, he is free to follow his instincts, adapting his methods to create something completely novel in a beautiful, but challenging environment. Mickaël’s cuvées—three of which are named for summits he has climbed in the breathtaking Massif des Écrins—are wines of great purity and class, characterized by floral aromatics, bright, fresh fruit, and stony reminders of the Alpine slopes from which they spawn. Born from the most unlikely of places, the wines of Les Hauts Lieux illustrate heroic viticulture at its very finest.