Stéphane Derenoncourt

Stéphane Derenoncourt is a French vigneron working as a consultant for numerous estates in Bordeaux and other wine producers worldwide, with his wife Christine Derenoncourt runs Vignerons Consultants and owns Domaine de l'A in the Côtes de Castillon and Derenoncourt California in Napa Valley. He is entirely self-taught.

Derenoncourt was born in Dunkirk in 1963. The start of his career in viticulture began when he arrived as a hitch-hiker in Fronsac in 1982, and worked several harvests before he found employment at Château Fronsac in 1985. After two years working at various vineyards, he began working in the cellar at Château La Fleur Cailleau. In 1990, Derenoncourt was offered a position at the Corre-Macquin family’s cellar at the Château Pavie-Macquin vineyard, and in 1996 was hired as a winemaker by Stephan von Neipperg to his estates, including Château Canon-la-Gaffelière and the "super cuvée" La Mondotte.

Derenoncourt began as a consultant in 1997, and in 1999 he and his wife started their own consultancy company, Vignerons Consultants. In 2010, Stéphane Derenoncourt, Julien Lavenu, Simon Blanchard and Frédéric Massie are associates and the consultancy becomes Derenoncourt Consultants. Derenoncourt and his team now works with a populous portfolio of estates in Bordeaux and elsewhere, including Domaine de Chevalier, Clos Fourtet, Clos de l'Oratoire and Chateaux Pavie-Macquin, Chateau Malescasse, Canon-la-Gaffelière, La Gaffelière, Petit Village, Smith Haut Lafitte, Brown, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Rol Valentin, Prieuré-Lichine and Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse. In June 2008, Derenoncourt and Vignerons Consultants was hired by Francis Ford Coppola to work on the Napa Valley property Rubicon Estate Winery. Other Derenoncourt projects abroad include engagements in Italy, Austria, Spain, Turkey, in Syria with Domaine de Bargylus, and in Beqaa Valley, Lebanon with Château Marsyas.

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