Ballet between body and mind
DELICIOUSLY STUBBORN
When you taste Yannick Meckert's natural wines, which revolve so much around precision, the obsession with quality and the control of everything you smell, you feel that Yannick has the desire to do things differently. His idea is to bring a new emotion and create a holistic experience in which everything counts and transcends ambition. From a sincere drive, a dance of actions and permanent tension arises in which Yannick moves tirelessly. Yannick is enthusiastic, eager to learn and likes to learn by doing. His wines are individualistic, disarmingly exciting and deliciously stubborn.
BACKPACKING
With a Burgundian mother and an Alsatian father, Yannick grew up between two wine regions. After studying viticulture and oenology in Beaune and Montpellier, he tried to work with his parents on the small family estate but needed help to agree with their philosophy. Spraying Roundup and adding the magical powders of oenology to wine was out of his league. He left his parent's house without a penny in his pocket to go backpacking worldwide. Check. He travelled to China, Burma, Thailand, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, the United States, Vietnam and Japan, where he learned to make sake. His thirst for knowledge and passion for winemaking led him to return to Europe via several Asian countries and America. He stayed in Burgundy and Austria and finally returned to Alsace with a wealth of experience and an enormous network to the village of Rosheim, around the corner from Jean-Marc Dreyer. He briefly worked as a sommelier in London and Copenhagen, but that was different from where his passion lay. He counts passionate spirits among his mentors, such as Pacalet, Meyer, Preisinger, Terada Honke, Dufour, Jauma, Le Coste, Binner and Pax Mahle, who constantly fueled his passion. Natural wine legend Jules Chauvet is also a unique source of inspiration for Yannick.
HEART FRIEND
Yannick owns about 3.5 hectares in Alsace, planted with Auxerrois, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sylvaner, Riesling and Gewürztraminer on volcanic sandstone and blue slate soils. He shares a few Pinot Noir vines in Burgundy with his best friend, Bastian Wolbers. Yannick increased his production with some purchased fruit, and although he prefers to work with his vines, the land prices are reasonable for buying fine grapes from Jeanne, a good friend. She works Riesling and Pinot Noir biodynamically, a farming method that treats the vineyard as a self-sustaining ecosystem, without a tractor and with meagre yields.
ACID-FRUIT RATIO
In the vineyards, Yannick lets the grass grow lushly, so there is no fertilization, and he has recently changed the pruning method from Guyot to Cordon. Instead of sulphur and copper, he works with a treatment based on lactic acid bacteria, clays, essential oils and plants, which benefits the acid-fruit ratio. Due to a better phenolic ripeness, Yannick now tastes more salty than sour ripeness in the grapes. Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Gewürztraminer vinification is with whole bunches at a time and with more extract. The other white grapes are pressed directly, especially concerning a unique terroir. The wines mature for one to two years without sulphur or any other aid. Yannick's commitment to natural winemaking ensures that every bottle truly reflects the terroir and the grape variety, promising a unique and authentic tasting experience.
TALENT
Yannick is a critical thinker, open-minded, investigative, curious, objective and searching. He is not easily seduced into subjectivity and prejudice but consciously reflects on his qualities, pitfalls and motives. He cannot explain his intuition but feels flawless about what he could improve. At home, happiness smiles because he has found the beautiful Jolet, the love of his life, in the Netherlands. Together with their daughter Jaia, they have a fantastic future ahead of them. Yannick has conquered us with his inspiring wines. We love the pure, lively style that is light and juicy on the one hand but with filling and complexity, inspiring salty and sour and sometimes a cool edge. Yannick's wines are a unique blend of flavours and textures that will leave you wanting more. If it were up to Yannick, there would be a lot of wine fireworks in the coming years.
