Sons of Wine Bisous Bisous

About Sons of Wine Bisous Bisous

Sons of Wine Bisous Bisous is a VERY small production orange wine of Gewurztraminer and Riesling. Intensely herbal and floral with dried tropical fruit and salinity.

About Sons of Wine

Sons of Wine was created by Farid Yahimi, born and raised in Nancy, France. Farid started a career in digital communications and open-source software before switching to the natural wine movement. Carole Yahimi, Farid’s cousin and the founder of the French association of natural wine (AVN), introduced Farid to natural wine. Carole connected Farid to some of the pioneers, such as Pierre Overnoy, Marcel Lapierre, Thierry Puzelat, and Christian Binner, and this sparked a greater curiosity. Through conversation and lending a hand in their wineries, he received an informal education in vinification which launched him into winemaking.

The early stages involved a lot of experimentation and the occasional batch of vinegar because Farid was never interested in a formal oenological education that taught him dogmatic vinification methods. Instead, he wanted to learn precision through practice. In 2010, Farid planted his first parcel and released his first vintage with fruit purchased from a few friends. Till 2017, the wine was mostly for his friends and himself to enjoy. However, with the quality of his wine reaching new levels, Farid increased production to 5,000 bottles and named it Sons of Wine, inspired by the show Sons of Anarchy and his love of motorcycles. He told a friend, “If I can sell 5,000 bottles, that’s great. If not, I will still drink it in the next 2 years.” He sold all 5,000 by the end of that year.

Farid rented a part of Christian Binner’s winery and some equipment from the beginning. In 2020 he created his own winery in Ribeauville and moved out of Binner’s. He just owns 2 hectares: 1ha in Côtes de Toul and 1ha in Beaujolais. However, the land is pretty expensive in Alsace, and access to good terroir is hard to come by, so Farid decided to make wine primarily from purchased grapes (90% are Biodynamic, 10% Organic). Each cuvée has a story behind it and a specific terroir devoted to it, so he is always sourcing from the same vineyard from vintage to vintage. If there is any issue with the fruit, the cuvée would be dropped, and a new project would take its place. Farid can travel and work with various grapes and terroirs by not farming a large area. This also means he can source grapes that he wouldn’t be able to own in Alsace—for instance, 200-year-old Verdejo from Spain with a similar terroir to Alsace, the rare red Muscat, grapes on volcanic soil, and so on.

Farid dedicates a lot of interest to the personal relationship he has with his growers. It’s the first deciding factor. “Sourcing grapes is, first of all, a human adventure. Do we get along, and do we want to grow together?” Farid takes care of the vineyard practices and advises his grower on the biodynamic treatments he wants. He also searches for vineyards without plowing, pruning, or copper/sulfur treatments—only biodynamic preparations to produce quality fruit in healthy quantities. All of his wines are produced without any additives at all, including sulfites, and without any filtration.

Philosophy in the Cellar

“We do nothing, period. We do the best we can. Vintages are always different, you can see people making wine for 30 years with biodynamic vineyards for a long time having a lot of troubles in the cellar when others are making wine for 2 years with organic vineyards in conversion and everything goes smoothly in the cellar. There is no certainty and cellar’s work is firstly humility. When it goes wrong you just take a Kleenex. I might be lucky but I’m not throwing out a lot of wine every year. Some wine doesn’t complete sugar, there are not wine nor vinegar, I just wait and very often it works out.”