Bordeaux Nouveau: Sustainability-focused regenerative agriculture is the future for Bordeaux wine.

August 26, 2024 – Husband and wife, Ian Hocking (Winemaker & Co-Owner) & Shu Min Ho (Co-Owner) are excited to announce that Château Shuette, a family-owned regenerative organic vineyard & farm, will release their first wines in August 2024.

Ian says: “We love the tradition of quality wines from Bordeaux but want to help move the story forward and focus on sustainability and regenerative agriculture to produce terroir-focused quality natural wines. Something we call Bordeaux Nouveau. This focus on terroir has led to our decision to deconsecrate our Bordeaux Supérieur land to produce Vin De France. This allows us more freedom to create wines that are true to the land”.

Natural wine is still very rare in Bordeaux, with noted natural wine website www.raisin.digital listing just 50 producers out of more than 7,000 wineries estimated to be in the area – that’s just 0.007% of all producers. However, organic and natural wines are set to see more than double the growth of conventional wine with one study finding a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.9% vs. 6.2% for conventional wines.

Shuette’s 4.5 hectare vineyard produces on average 16,000 bottles of wine per year. Shuette is situated in one block next to the Dordogne River in Entre-Deux-Mers on deep clay and mineral schist ground that has been organically cultivated for 30 years. Shuette is an easy 25 minute drive from central Bordeaux and is open Monday – Saturday 09:00 – 18:00. Shu says: “We’d love to welcome everyone to explore the vineyard and taste our wines, whether you are a natural wine veteran or just curious about what makes natural wine different”.

The natural organic wine that we will release in August 2024 has been produced with minimal intervention and very small quantities of sulphites added throughout the winemaking process. Ian says: “All our vineyard processes are done by hand, to maximise quality and the true expression of the grapes we harvest”.

Our farm is 12 hectares in total. Over the next few years, we will implement new systems to strengthen and diversify our ecosystem, cultivate delicious produce and ensure the sustainability of our operations. These will include a market garden, livestock (ducks, geese and pigs) and silvopasture fruit and nut trees. This will complement the 250 fruit trees and nearly 280 bird, bat and owl boxes we already have throughout the vineyard.

Shuette will release 5 wines this year: AURUM an orange wine, SANGUIS and NOVAS which are modern style clarets and a traditional profile red wine ANIMA, alongside a modern version RADIX.

Natural wine fans will be able to buy the wines from www.shuette.com and customers in Europe and the UK will benefit from free delivery on all orders from 6 bottles.

The logo of our brand represents an owl (In French, “Chouette”). The name was then modified to include the name of Shu Min, hence Shuette, maintaining the phonetic sound. We then rotate this symbol to describe the style each wine was made in. The wings of the owl symbolically point to the intention.

Biography

Ian Hocking
Winemaker, President, Co-owner, Château Shuette.

Ian was born in the UK and worked in the media for 15 years. Moving from London to Hong Kong and then finally to Singapore where he worked as a VP for the South China Morning Post before deciding to follow his heart to France and open Château Shuette an organic regenerative vineyard and farm in Bordeaux. Inspired by many years working in Michelin-started kitchens as a chef (including The Ritz, London) he later lived above Borough Market to immerse himself in quality raw ingredients and the UK’s best producers.

Together with his wife (Shu Min Ho), Ian spent a lot of time trying to source sustainable high-quality products, but found them frustratingly hard to find and trust. He therefore decided with Shu Min to tackle the issue head-on to create what they love and build their own supply chain from the ground up at Château Shuette.

Shu Min Ho
Partner, Singapore, Sidley Austin LLP. Co-owner, Château Shuette.

Shu Min Ho is from Malaysia and studied in Singapore, the United States, China, Australia and the UK before becoming a lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in London where she met Ian Hocking at a wine bar 8 years ago. They moved to Hong Kong and then Singapore together where she became a Partner at Sidley Austin LLP, working in white collar defence and investigations.

Shu Min has always appreciated local culture and cuisine, developing a keen interest in travel, food and wine as she grew up around the world. Now she is truly excited to support a project helmed by Ian that will help to deliver high quality, organic produce with transparency and sustainability at its core.

Château Shuette

The 12 hectares of land was converted to organic production 30 years ago. The previous owners were known for their ecological vision and quality wines. They worked hard to build a vibrant ecosystem of animals and plants including establishing over 250 fruit trees throughout the vineyard. We are now in the process of developing that work and extending the project to include a 2 hectare organic market garden and flocks of free-range ducks and geese along with pastured pigs. Each of these symbiotic ventures will help to continuously regenerate the land and provide diversified income that we can use to support our sustainability goals of improving the land and the lives of our customers and staff.

The terroir of Chateau Shuette allows us to make very high quality wines with deep clay and mineral rich schist soil, influenced by the river over centuries that still provides us with frost protection, a cool breeze, and morning summer fog which accentuates a large diurnal temperature change that can help to protect acidity whilst ensuring great ripeness. These factors, plus the regenerative way we farm to boost soil fertility and biodiversity, ensure that we do not need to use herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals in the field or our winemaking.

In our first release, the wines have been supported by low levels (between 0-14mg/l) of sulphites and some filtration. But from 2024 onwards, Shuette will be Zero/Zero (no sulphites, no filtration).