Léa De Cazo: The Agent of Resistant Varieties!

January 22, 2025 - 2 comments

Léa De Cazo: The Agent of Resistant Varieties!

We made a fascinating interview with Léa De Cazo!

In this new podcast episode, we meet Léa De Cazo, who explains how she became an agent for winemakers growing hybrid grape varieties. Léa represents and promotes their wines to wine shops and restaurants in Paris. In this podcast, she shares her journey, her passion for often-overlooked resistant varieties, and their potential in the face of climate change.

Available (only in French) on:

Written transcript of the interview:

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m not from the wine world at all, so I have a massive case of imposter syndrome. I come from journalism—I was a journalist for five years for a TV show that aired on Arte. Then I discovered wine thanks to Lori Haon from Domaine du Petit Oratoire in the Gard. I worked for him, helped with the harvest, and fell head over heels—not just for him, but for the estate and for the region where I’m originally from. I already had a special attachment to that area, and he trusted me right away. I had just come for the harvest, but he quickly put me in the cellar, and I completely fell for it.

I also owe a lot to the owner of a restaurant on Rue de la Roquette, who let me work with him for a year. He had me taste so many things and really educated me on wine tasting. One day, while I was working at the bar, Emmanuel Bienvenu (Château Gaillard) came in to pitch us his Plantet Noir cuvée. And I was like, What is this stuff? I’d heard a little about hybrids before, that was two years ago, but I had never actually tasted one. He came in with his wine, explained everything to us, and I thought it was amazing.

After that, I started looking into who was growing hybrids. Raisin helped me a lot, actually, because I’d go on winemakers’ profiles, and sometimes, if they were growing resistant grape varieties, they’d mention it in their bio. That’s how I found Geoffrey Estienne. I went to see him in the Creuse, and he taught me so much. Then I went to visit Emmanuel Bienvenu in the Loire. At the same time, the Vitis Batardus Liberata wine fair allowed me to taste all kinds of different things.

léa de cazo

 

Orji Wine

The Orji agency was born thanks to Geoffrey Estienne and Emmanuel Bienvenu, who told me they had wine to sell. So there I was, showing up with an empty Renault Clio and leaving with 600 bottles packed into the trunk. I had to sell them somehow. La Cave de Belleville, where we are now, was one of my first clients, and I’m really grateful to them for that. They gave me confidence right from the start, on my very first sales round. I came here with Geoffrey’s wines, which they already knew. I was shaking, it was my first time pitching as an agent, and I was so nervous. But they tasted the wines and said, Oh yeah, yeah, it definitely has that hybrid taste, but it’s really good. And that was it, the whole thing took off. That was in January 2024.

Today, I work with seven wineries in Belgium, Switzerland, Languedoc, Creuse, Loire, and Ardèche. I don’t plan on expanding the catalog for now. This way, I can work closely with the winemakers, tailor everything to them. It’s enough for me. There are big wholesalers in Paris who do this on a much larger scale, but I run a small agency, and that suits me just fine.

Orji wine

 

So now you also work in restaurants, at Pluto? Do you see yourself making a full-time living as an agent in the long run?

I like working in restaurants, but these jobs wear you out physically, and the hours aren’t always easy. So yeah, for now, it excites me, but in the long run, being an agent is what I really want to do. Distributing wine, organizing fairs… Maybe working with restaurants on events here and there, but I’d never want to completely leave the restaurant scene. It’s what keeps winemakers going—it keeps us, the agents and wholesalers, going too. Of course, wine shops play a role, but restaurants bring that festive element to wine.

As an agent, I can go visit winemakers in their vineyards, distribute their bottles. And when I work at Pluto, I get to see customers’ reactions firsthand, sometimes I serve hybrids by the glass. We’ll put Paul Barlet’s Le Coudert on the menu, for example. That’s amazing—to be able to see how people react in real time. And I don’t even have to say, Here’s a resistant grape variety. Unless they’re curious, I just let them enjoy it. Because sometimes, it’s not worth diving straight into the politics or giving a detailed explanation. At the end of the day, it’s about drinking wine and having a good time, whether it’s hybrid or not.

Pluto paris

 

What is a hybrid grape variety?

“Hybrid wine” refers to wines made from hybrid grape varieties, as opposed to wines made from conventional grapes like Pinot Noir or Chardonnay.

So, what are hybrid grape varieties? They are vines created by crossing two different grape species, usually a European vine with an American vine. This is done through pollination, it’s not a genetically modified cross made in a lab. It’s a natural cross at the plant level.

The goal of this crossbreeding is to enrich the genetic makeup of the vine, to have a bit of the American parent’s genetics and a bit of the European parent’s. American vines are naturally resistant to common vine diseases, so the idea is to bring in those resistance genes while keeping the European vine’s aromatic profile. We want to retain the taste, the aromatic complexity, because we’re attached to our winemaking heritage.

© Léa De Cazo
© Léa De Cazo

What do you think about the term “hybrid grape”?

Technically, we shouldn’t even be using the term cépage (grape variety). According to the French National Observatory of Vine and Wine, we should call them resistant varieties instead. The word cépage is supposed to be reserved for Vitis vinifera grapes. And there’s an ongoing debate within the ampelographic (grape science) community about this.

“Hybrid” does have a negative connotation. I actually like the term “resistant variety” because there’s something political about it, these grapes have a political history. But yeah, hybrid makes people think of a Peugeot 308 you can plug in. It doesn’t exactly sound appealing. So maybe resistant varieties is better, but even then, we’re not officially allowed to call them cépages, so variety is the correct term.

© Léa De Cazo
© Léa De Cazo

What environmental benefits do these varieties have?

Hybrid grapes—or resistant varieties are a real asset to the environment. Their natural resistance to vine diseases means they require little to no chemical treatments.

That’s something people in the natural wine scene often overlook. Even organic-certified vineyards with classic grape varieties like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, still need treatments with sulfur and copper. Organic certification allows up to six kilos of copper per hectare per year, averaged over five years. If a year is particularly tough, they can use up to ten kilos, and the next year, they’ll use only four. This is something people tend to ignore when drinking natural wine.

Meanwhile, a winemaker like Emmanuel Bienvenu, whom I work with, only sprayed his hybrids four times this year, while his neighbors treated their vines fourteen times. So yeah, hybrids clearly have environmental benefits—less sulfur, less copper in the soil, and greater resilience to climate change.

© Léa De Cazo
© Léa De Cazo

Are hybrid wines bad?

Hybrids are like anything else—you just have to be curious. They’ve suffered from a bad reputation, partly because some varieties were banned, and growers were even encouraged to rip them out. Historically, hybrids were often used for low-quality wine or alcohol production.

But if you taste them blind, like we just did with four different cuvées, I don’t think they’re all that divisive. Some have high acidity, some are short on the palate—but that’s more about the winemaking than the grape itself. People just need to taste and keep an open mind.

© Léa De Cazo
© Léa De Cazo

 

You organized a wine fair called Résistance—can you tell us about it?

Yes! We organized a fair on November 17, thanks to an invitation from the team at Gush, a bar on Rue des Pyrénées (75020). It was a fair with winemakers from the ORJI agency, plus some others who joined us. The theme was 100% resistant grape varieties—hence the name.

Honestly, we were surprised by how many individual consumers showed up. It was a mistake on my part, I scheduled a fair on a Sunday! My idea was that it would be more for industry professionals. But actually, because it was on a Sunday, we ended up attracting a ton of consumers. And that just goes to show that people are curious about this. Beyond the wine trade, beyond wine lovers, beyond sommeliers, it means the public is ready!

We're doing another one in June. We’ve got the team. And yeah, we had already organized another fair called Hybride, which happened thanks to an invitation and proposal from Étienne and Lisa at L’Orillon. That was the first edition, in June, and it was exclusively winemakers from ORJI. There were five of us back then, and it was amazing. And honestly, it was a great experience for them too because it took place inside L’Orillon. People were out on the sidewalk, which kind of serves as a terrace, so they were outside, the weather was great, everything tasted good... It was a fantastic moment. Just perfect!

Résistance : Le salon des vins hybrides.
Résistance : Le salon des vins hybrides.

2 Comments
jdesrante 29 Jan. 2025
jdesrante

Bonjour. Je suis vigneron en Charentes et je vais planter des variétés résistantes pour de multiples raisons notamment celles évoquées dans votre excellent podcast qui me conforte dans ma démarche. Mais quelques précisions tout de même… Concernant le cuivre la dose hectare est de 4 kg et non 6 kg. Il faut noter qu’elle ne fait que baisser depuis 20 ans, et que les conventionnels peuvent en utiliser autant que les Bio en plus de tout le reste ! De plus, ayant participé à une formation de Marc André Selosse, nous lui avions posé la question de l’incidence du cuivre sur la vie du sol. D’après lui, à cette dose elle est peu ou pas impactante. En tout cas sans commune mesure avec les conséquences de la viticulture conventionnelle ! Comme vous l’expliquez, cette situation n’est pas viable et nous devons évoluer dans nos pratiques et notre encépagement mais cela demande du temps… Encore merci pour votre travail et j’espère pouvoir bientôt boire des vins que vous proposez !

adorable 24 Jan. 2025
adorable

Cool interview. Going to check out Pluto and Gush now.

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