Bonjour, c’est moi Joanne!

I’m from Liverpool originally but I’ve been living in France for 30 years and with Denis, who was born in Paris, for almost 20 years! In 2018, we took on this house in Espinas, a little village between Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and Caylus in the Tarn & Garonne - midway between Toulouse, Montauban and Albi and the greenest vineyards of Southwest wine country.

It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the local wines — organic, biodynamic and natural wines made from a wealth of native grape varieties by a new generation of committed and courageous producers. They sent me on a journey, a sort of Southwest wine version of the Arabian Nights where one story leading to another — another grower, another grape variety, another terroir.

I visited the vineyards, went to wine fairs, read voraciously, passed a few wine exams* and in 2023, with big thanks to Denis, I opened this wine shop in the old stables beneath our home and began to host wine tastings, because there’s so much to discover on our doorstep.

*Joanne holds the WSET 3 in Wines and Franck Thomas Certificate in Intuitive & Geo-sensorial tasting.