2020 Marcel Lapierre Morgon

Marcel Lapierre

In 1909, at the turn of the century, Michel Lapierre, a farmer from the Beaujolais region, moved to Villié-Morgon with his wife Annette and worked as the cellar master at Domaine Les Chênes, the home of our current winery. In 1911, two years after his arrival to the village, their son Camille was born. He was the third child in the family, but the first to be born in Villié-Morgon.

At only 14 years-old, Camille Lapierre (Marcel’s father) began to work in the vines as a sharecropper with his mother and father. Since the beginning, the family have plowed the soil, working manually or aided with a horse. Camille’s father passed away in 1930 at which time he took over full vineyard and winery duties. In 1941, Camille married Lucienne Mathieu. The wine he made at the time, went entirely to the Cave Cooperative in the neighboring village of Fleurie, but Camille was eager to develop direct barrel sales to bouchons, the bistros in Lyon and Mâcon, a notion that was very visionary for the time period.

In 1950, the couple’s third child and first son, Marcel Lapierre, was born. In 1958-1959, Camille began to bottle wine himself and label it under his own name; another idea that was avant-garde for the era. Then in 1960, he bought his first vines, increasing the farm to 7 hectares (just over 17 acres).