“The wines seek freshness and perfume — a phrase that sounds modest until you taste how much control it requires.”
Alain Graillot was forty-one years old and working as an electrochemical engineer for pharmaceutical companies when he decided, in 1985, to make wine instead. He had no vineyard, no training, and no family connection to the trade. Within a decade, he had single-handedly transformed the reputation of Crozes-Hermitage. Seven times his wines appeared on Wine Spectator's Top 100. He learned from Jacques Seysses at Domaine Dujac, from Gérard Chave, from Auguste Clape — the Northern Rhône's deepest lineage, absorbed by an outsider.
When Alain died in March 2022 at seventy-seven, he left behind two sons and an approach to winemaking built on rigor rather than romance.
Antoine and Maxime Graillot took different paths from the same starting point. Maxime stayed in the Northern Rhône to oversee the family estates. Antoine wandered. But in 2013, the brothers converged on an idea: buy land in Beaujolais, where old-vine Gamay on granite was still undervalued, and apply the discipline their father had taught them.
They purchased parcels in Fleurie and Saint-Amour — roughly eight hectares total. Five in Saint-Amour, where forty-year-old vines sit on stony granite topsoil. Three in Fleurie, on the pink granite slopes that give the cru its lift. A plot in Leynes adds Chardonnay from granite-clay-limestone soils above 350 meters.
“freshness and perfume”
The name "Fa" comes from their grandmother's childhood farm — a small, private reference in a family that has earned its share of public ones.
The vineyards are farmed biodynamically, certified organic since 2019. In the cellar, whole-bunch maceration happens in concrete. Aging unfolds in foudres and concrete tanks with indigenous yeast. The wines seek what the Graillots call "freshness and perfume" — a phrase that sounds modest until you taste how much control it requires.
Their first vintage was 2014, from the En Besset vineyard in Saint-Amour. Northern Rhône precision, Beaujolais fruit. Their father would have recognized the method, if not the grape.
WINES FROM DOMAINE DE FA (A&M GRAILLOT)
The Graillot brothers' original Beaujolais lieu-dit, first made in 2014. Whole-cluster, concrete-fermented, aged in Christophe Roumier's old barrels.
From the Roche Guillon lieu-dit. Organic and biodynamic, whole-cluster fermented, pressed on an antique vertical press from Burgundy. Perfumed and silky.
Sons of a legendary Northern Rhône family, farming organically on granite in Beaujolais. Precise and mineral — great white Beaujolais is uncommon and deserves more attention. This one sings.
Prime parcels acquired in 2013 — old vines, organic, whole-cluster. The love cru, made with a gentle hand.
From the Les Crais vineyard in Leynes. Technically Mâconnais, made with Northern Rhône sensibility — mineral and restrained on granite.