Between earth and sky

Laurent Combier has two overriding passions in life: wine and aircraft. In the vines, his father was first in the northern Rhône Valley, in 1970, to embrace organic grape cultivation when everyone used chemical weedkillers. In the cockpit, his instructor had something of the famed aviator Jean Mermoz about him, always avid for adventure. To put it mildly, Laurent Combier respects these pioneers, who made light of mockery and showed others the way. So Laurent is going straight ahead. Not as an obedient son but as a contented man who believes his way of growing grapes is perfectly legitimate. And everything he does in life, he does with finesse. To his mind, nature is a living thing, and so he observes his vines meticulously; yet he knows that nothing is ever the same two years in a row. He has read a great deal, but realised that not everything is written in the books – and so he listens to old men’s words. He disdains the easy option and so refuses to make wines solely for an elite: with his family of cuvées, he can please the greatest number. He enjoys tough vintages because they force him to work better, to think better. Building on his family’s past, he hopes to chart the future for his children, but without rushing them – just easing them along, the way his parents did with him. A shade over 40, Laurent feels he has “matured”, a little like his work with the vines and the style of his wines. Let’s say that he sees everything in depth; like his vines, his own roots are far-reaching. He will never give up the legacy he received, the better to pass it on.