How to meet three French winemakers in one place in Oregon? Your best bet is to celebrate Bastille Day at the local winery owned by one of them.

On July 14th we attended Bastille Day celebration at Domaine Divio Vineyard in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The owner and winemaker Bruno Corneaux throws this party every year and this time he invited his two French friends and winemakers who call Oregon their home now.

Meet the winemakers: Bruno Corneaux of Domaine Divio, Thibaud Mandet of Clos Griotte and Isabelle Dutartre of 1789. They all are accomplished professionals with over 20 years of winemaking experience, who started their careers in France and later moved to Oregon with the aspiration to have their wine label and winery.

It was a great pleasure to meet and talk with three true artists of winemaking art. In their hands, they hold the bottles with their own wine labels - the dream of every winemaker.

In the middle is Isabelle Dutartre, the winemaker with 30 years of experience.

Isabelle studied winemaking in her native France at the University of Bourgogne. Then she worked for 12 years at Joseph Drouhin in Beaune Burgundy France. In 1993 she started making wine in Oregon and commuted back and forth between Oregon and France. In 1999 Isabelle became first and the only winemaker at De Ponte Cellars located in Dundee Hills in the heart of Willamette Valley of Oregon. She has put De Ponte on the map as a boutique producer of exceptional Pinot Noir.

Since 2007 Isabelle makes her own boutique wine under "1789" label. In her own words, "The year 1789 was a time of revolution in my native France,
and my 1789 Wines reflect my own personal revolution when I moved my three kids (and my dog) from the south of France to the Oregon wine country.

It was symbolic that we tasted Isabelle's "1789" wines on Bastille Day. We liked Isabelle's wine so much that we decided to celebrate the 2019 Bastille Day with one of her bottles. We hope we'll be able to restrain ourselves for a year.

To the right of Isabelle is Thibaud Mandet. He grew up in Auvergne in central France in a family of doctors who dabbled in winemaking. To the delight of his parent after completing undergraduate studies in chemistry, Thibaud received a classical wine education: diploma from famed La Faculté D'oenologie De Bordeaux and the postgraduate degree in "Vins de Champagne” from the Facuté d’Oenologie de Reims.

In 2000 Thibaud Mandet came to Oregon after two harvests internship in large Texas winery. He responded to a job posting in the hallway of his alma mater Faculté d'oenologie de Bordeaux. He learned that his countrymen Bernard Lacroute the owner and Laurent the winemaker of WillaKenzie Estate were looking for an assistant winemaker. The seasonal job turned to over fifteen years affair as winemaker for WillaKenzie. In 2016 Thibaud left WillaKenzie Estate when it was acquired by Jackson-Kendall Family Wines and started working full time on his own winery Clos Griotte.

The name of the winery derives from the French word "griotte" meaning sour cherry because it's the flavor typically associated with Pinot Noir in Burgundy. We liked Clos Griotte Rose so much that we had to take home a bottle.

Bruno was borne and raised in Beaune in the heart of Burgundy and is fourth generation winemaker. Just like Isabelle and Thibaud, he got classic winemaking education. While working on his Master’s Degree in Enology & Viticulture, Bruno gained extensive scientific knowledge as a Chemistry Analyzer, where he got acquainted with André Weil, his future partner in Domaine Divio Winery. After earning his degree, Bruno enhanced his knowledge while working in vineyards and wineries in South Africa, California, Oregon and Washington. In 1999 he moved to the South Pacific and took on the challenge to start wine growing and winemaking on Tahiti island. He successfully developed the first ten acre-vineyard and produced award-winning wines on the island of Tahiti.

In 2012, with the goal of creating the perfect Pinot Noir, André and Bruno started to produce their own wines while searching for the best spot in Willamette Valley. They found it in 2014 in Ribbon Ridge AVA of the valley and planted Clos Gallia. Now it's wine history in the making.

We believe these three French-born American winemakers are the quintessential story of the American Dream. Their dream was to make their own wine and hard work, creative vision, and determination helped them to make it the reality. A ta réussite!