Viticulture: Pas-de-Calais relights the barrel

"You'll be able to say you've drunk a Pas-de-Calais wine!" Laurianne Carbonnaux, 40, lively and funny, is having fun. She and her husband, Paul-Adrien, have ventured into a slightly crazy dream: to produce their own wines as independent winegrowers, from cultivation to vinification, in Hauts-de-France. A land of beers and hops, unaccustomed to vines. On the borders of Artois and the mining basin, the budding grape clusters, dense with green berries, bask in the sun on a hillside with white soils, a mixture of limestone and clay. Children's cries echo: the Quatre Saisons toboggan run in Olhain Park is just above. The vines are still young, planted in March 2021. Laurianne is only at the beginning of the adventure: to recreate—with other winegrowers in the region—a viticultural tradition north of Paris.

In her modest winery, still housed in a garage at the town hall of Fresnicourt-le-Dolmen (Pas-de-Calais), where she lives, she offers tastings of her first vintage, the 2023 vintage, from her brand Terres de grès. "We call it a garage wine," she jokes. It's a Chardonnay, with a translucent green-yellow color and a hint of vanilla. The flavor is mineral and slowly develops toward a more woody tone, thanks to its aging in oak barrels. She anxiously awaits the visitors' appreciation.

Laurianne Carbonnaux smiles about it: a problem of legitimacy, she explains. However, her vintage , La Table des fées, has won over Chri