Our Prehistory

The birth of the Domaine de la Ferme Saint-Martin is much more recent than that of the buildings.
In the 12th century, the district was named Saint-Martin, in homage to the chapel of the same name, where the aging cellar is located today. The wines lie dormant in a place steeped in history…
Our story, that of the estate, begins in the 1950s. At that time, the farm was divided in two.

The Birth of the Estate

Aimé and Yvonne JULLIEN, then young farmers, ran the part of the farm where Yvonne grew up.
In October 1955, they managed to acquire the remaining part: the estate then comprised 13 hectares, cultivated using mixed crops (vines, olive trees, apricot trees, and cherry trees).
The winter of 1956 arrived, accompanied by a devastating cold snap.
Not a single olive tree survived, the vines and apricot trees were partially frozen, and Aimé and Yvonne were discouraged.
Aimé, who had already produced more young and tried his hand at a few barrels with his own grapes, had an idea in mind.
He replanted all the old orchards with vines. In 1964, a small winery was opened.
The first sales were made through word of mouth. Fernand Degouet, a printer in Paris, friend and first client of Aimé, created the label for the first vintage, the Saint-Martin vintage, which remains almost unchanged to this day.
For years, he would return from his vacations in Suzette with the trunk of his DS filled with bottles of wine!

Aimé

In 1970, the estate was launched. Aimé built the current winery to vinify his 11 hectares.
The terroir of Suzette is very unique. It was successively classified as a simple appellation, then as Côtes-du-Ventoux, Côtes-du-Rhône, Côtes-du-Rhône Village, and finally as a Beaumes-de-Venise appellation in 1978.
In 1979, Aimé had health problems and decided to pass the baton to his son.
Guy, who was only 20 years old, was still able to count on his father’s help and advice for many years.

Guy

After about ten years of sustainable farming, Guy decided to return to a more natural way of growing (plowing the vines, treatments with Bordeaux mixture and sulfur, organic fertilizer).
The Organic Farming Standards were adopted in 1998.
In the early 1980s, Guy and his wife Michèle participated in the first Salons des Vignerons Indépendants in Paris, where wine enthusiasts, wine merchants, and restaurateurs discovered wines.
At that time, wine bars were opening in Paris; Les Envierges by François Morel, Le Baratin by Rachel and Olivier, Les Pipos by Jean Michel Delhoume, Le Moulin à vins by Dany…
Guy spent impromptu evenings there, tasting wines with these enthusiasts and different winemakers from other regions of France.
From there, the desire to make natural wines was affirmed.
In 1994, having enlarged the winery, Guy made his first winemaking by separating all his terroirs.
That year, the “Cuvée du Diapir”, 100% Trias, was born. This was followed by the “Les Terres Jaunes” vintage in 2000, still from the Trias terroir, then the “Costancia” vintage, from a marl terroir.
In 1999, the estate expanded into the Côtes-du-Ventoux region, with the purchase of 3 hectares in Les Estaillades, in the commune of Le Barroux. Five years later, in 2004, Guy and Thomas (who was finishing his studies and planned to settle on the estate) decided to buy a vineyard in St Hippolyte le Graveyron, to create the latest addition: “La Gérine”.
In 2006, the new tasting cellar was opened. It became a pleasant meeting place, hosting numerous convivial events and several art exhibitions per year.

Thomas & Sophie

Thomas, Michèle and Guy’s son, after two BTS (Higher National Diploma) degrees in business and oenology, and two years spent in various vineyards, is destined to work at the estate.
The latter, building on these enriching encounters with winemakers, removes all oenological inputs and manages the cellar with a masterful hand.
Sophie, his wife, a sommelier and trainer, joined him at the estate in 2020 and turned her attention to wine tourism. From the first year, she set up original workshops: blending workshops with old grape varieties, wine tastings under hypnosis, very advanced food and wine pairings…
When summer arrives, evenings, concerts, theater, openings punctuate the season every Thursday and Friday
Fervent defenders of good food and good drinking and concerned with perpetuating this rich heritage, they reintroduce old grape varieties called “forgotten”, such as Counoise, Terret Noir, Aramon, Picpoul Noir….
With their heads full of projects, they work with conviction and rigor in order to offer lively, expressive wines that are a source of pleasure.