The Estate
The story
The origin. The emblem. The epicenter
A historic estate looking to the future
In the heart of the Pinada massif, on the winding road linking Fontfroide to Lagrasse, Château Ollieux Romanis stands as the historic cradle of a singular vision of wine in the Corbières.
A place of passage, worship, and culture, it carries the memory of centuries and the energy of renewal.
First a farm, then a priory, then a distillery, the estate became a full wine property in the 18th century. Its natural springs of drinking water — known since Roman times — nourish both the soils and the history. Even today, these springs help regulate the temperature of the barrel cellar. The past quite literally feeds the present.
Here, each generation has left its mark, bringing its gesture and its vision. But the guiding thread never changes: making wine with rigor, humility, and fidelity to the place.
The Estate
Our terroir
A terroir of depth and contrast
Between sea and mountains, the Corbières form a powerful mineral landscape, shaped 200 million years ago by movements of the Earth’s crust. In this raw relief, under Mediterranean influence, the estate’s parcels extend across a complex, vibrant soil.
Mediterranean red sandstone
Formed from consolidated sands and rich in quartz and feldspar, red sandstone limits evaporation, absorbing and releasing minerals with finesse. It enables a bright expression of fruit and provides a natural foundation for organic farming.
Clays
They capture and slowly release water, maintaining freshness and humidity. Under the Corbières sun, they are the safeguard against water stress — the key to slow, controlled ripening.
Limestones
Dry, porous, demanding, limestone drives roots deep. This controlled water stress yields robust, deeply rooted vines, capable of producing wines that are both powerful and taut.
The estate also benefits from a distinctive microclimate: rare but welcome rains, winds from the north and the sea, cool nights and crisp winters. Each factor enhances grape expression. Each variation shapes the wine.
What parcel selections reveal — supported by a precise weather network — is the place’s exceptional diversity: no parcel has the same light, the same breath, the same history.
These are the nuances we translate into the bottle.
The Estate
The cellar
A historic cellar adapted to today’s vines
At Château Ollieux Romanis, modernization does not mean erasing. When we began renovating our winery in 2021, we made a strong choice: preserve the soul of the original building, built in the 19th century.
Its walls, its volume, its breathing remained intact — out of respect for history, for the place, for the memory of wine.
The gravity system at Château Ollieux Romanis is original. It is part of the site’s history, designed from the start to work gently and with respect for the material.
The historic building was preserved, but its heart was redesigned with state-of-the-art equipment, combining oenological precision, energy efficiency, and restrained gestures.
The cellar is now equipped with twenty double-skin stainless-steel tanks with thermal inertia, perfect for low-temperature fermentations, controlled energy consumption, and improved aromatic extraction.
Spread over two levels — vinification upstairs, storage downstairs — four of these tanks have a floating lid, enabling great precision in extraction and the production of parcel or terroir selections.
Workflow has been completely redesigned: guardrails ensure safety, and presses were adapted to tank capacity to ensure smooth consistency at every step.
Nitrogen blanketing drastically limits the addition of sulfites, preserving aromatic purity and the integrity of the juices.
Heat produced by the cooling unit is recovered to warm cleaning water, reducing our use of chemicals and supporting an anchored eco-responsible approach.
Finally, a few meters away, the semi-underground barrel cellar houses barrels and demi-muids in a stable, temperate atmosphere, ideal for long, unhurried aging. Here, the wine gains nuance, balance, and concentration.
The Estate
Our commitments
Smart, committed, human viticulture
At Château Ollieux Romanis, environmental commitment is not a strategy: it is self-evident.
The vines are grown under certified organic farming, with constant attention to biodiversity, soils, and balance.
A flock of sheep grazes the estate in winter, providing natural weeding and enriching soils with organic matter.
A gradual transition to biodynamics is underway, with the first herbal teas produced on site.
An experimental trellised parcel has been set up to meet climate-warming challenges: it protects bunches from the sun, improves airflow, and limits water stress.
Controlling dissolved oxygen is another priority: each transfer is inerted with nitrogen, tanks are closed and monitored, to preserve fruit freshness up to bottling.
Living matter is our raw material. We respect it as such.
Our wines: tradition revisited, terroir in the spotlight
The wines of Château Ollieux Romanis carry the memory of the place, the contours of the soil, the energy of the South.
They seek not artifice, but truth. Each cuvée expresses a clear intention, an assumed reading of our terroir.
- Reds that are both sun-kissed and elegant, driven by limestone depth and sandstone tension
- Full, expressive whites whose aromas are revealed by slow fermentations and precise aging
- Parcel or blended cuvées, fermented with indigenous yeasts, no sulfur during vinification, and minimal doses at bottling (total SO₂ < 30 mg/L)
The labels, like the wines, tell the origin.
Everything is designed so the consumer drinks consciously, understanding that in every bottle there is a soil, a hand, a story.
A living, open, inhabited place
The Château as the flagship of our experiences
Château Ollieux Romanis is much more than a wine estate: it is the beating heart of our project.
A place of welcome, encounter, and transmission, where you come not only to taste our wines, but also to live an experience that is rooted, sincere, generous.
Here, everything converges: landscapes, gestures, voices, tables, stories.
In this living heritage setting, we created La Touketa — the Ollieux restaurant, where our cuisine extends the spirit of the wine: local, intuitive, open to the landscape. Each plate celebrates seasons, producers, and true pairings. A cuisine of emotion, without artifice.
Around this culinary heart, we offer a complete and evolving range:
- Visits & tastings to discover our wines in their natural context
- Cooking workshops to learn by doing with our teams and products
- Themed evenings to explore a grape variety, a region, a season
- Takeaway dishes to extend the experience at home
- Tailor-made hosting: seminars, team buildings, weddings, or private events — the Château becomes an intimate stage for those who want to celebrate with taste and meaning.
This place is not fixed: it lives to the rhythm of encounters and seasons.
