Chai Saint Olive is Lyon’s first urban winemaking winery and is located at the heart of the 6th district of the city.
Urban winemaker, Chai Saint Olive is an urban winery that houses precision temperature controlled tanks and state-of-the-art winemaking facilities. From the reception of freshly pressed grape juice (also called must) to bottling, through ageing barrels, we produce hand-crafted wines on site.
All our wines are produced from 100% local grape varieties (Chardonnay, Viognier, Gamay and Syrah) thoroughly selected from 7 estates located as far as 80 kilometres from the Chai Saint Olive winery.
Chai Saint Olive is a real-life adventure punctuated by chance and long-standing encounters, including those of the Chai’s winegrower partners.
Our winegrower partners are true children of the land, passionate about their job and in love with their vines. They practice responsible winegrowing that respects nature and people.
Following this philosophy, Franck & Grégoire selected Chai Saint Olive’s winegrowers in the Rhône Valley with Jeanne Gaillard, Yves Cuilleron, Ludovic and Emmanuel Courbis and Eric Rocher as well as in the Beaujolais region with Viviane Tournissoux, Christophe Subrin and Hubert Cinquin.
Chai Saint Olive is also a unique and an atypical event venue dedicated to special themed tours, wine tastings and workshops, training courses, private and corporate events (seminars, team-building, board meetings, showrooms, birthday parties, hen and stag wine tasting events, etc).
Our wines are distributed at the following sites :
Restaurants : Agastache (Lyon 6e), Bouillon Baratte (Lyon 1er), Bouchon Palais Grillet (Lyon 2e), Cavatello (Corbas), Copain comme Canard (Lyon 3e), Epona, Hôtel InterContinental (Lyon 2e), Hôtel Kyriad Lyon Bron Eurexpo (Bron), Le Jean Moulin (Lyon 6e), Une Faim d’Apprendre (Lyon 9e), Retro Bistro (Lyon 5e), M Restaurant (Lyon 6e) and many more…
Wine merchants : Recoltant Manipulant (Lyon 1er), Aromo (Lyon 7e), Cave d’Or (Lyon 9e), Aux Caves de Charpennes (Villeurbanne), Cavavin St Georges (Lyon 5e), La Petite Cave d’Oullins (Oullins), Fromagerie Beillevaire, Les Halles de Lyon (Lyon 3e) and many more…
Export : UK exclusive distributor : Wanderlust Wine, Denmark exclusive distributor : WineAdvisor, Switzerland : Wii & Guss
Driven by the same passion for wine, we created our own wine production in 2014 with our first brand name : Saint Olive Frères®.
Matured and bottled by our partner winemakers, our Côtes-du-Rhône, Crozes Hermitage and Côtes-de-Provence wines are distributed mainly to individuals, restaurants and wine shops in Lyon and its region.
Based on this experience and through fortunate meetings along the way, we wanted to bring wine production to the city.
So we worked on this pioneer project and developed a unique concept in Lyon, that of a urban winemaking in our hometown.
First of all, what is a Chai? The word “Chai” in French refers to the place where all the winemaking stages take place. It is a wine storehouse, a winery. And in France, those wineries are usually located on wine estates far from city centres.
In recent years, urban wineries have emerged in cities such as New York, London and Paris. They have been very successful. It is how we developed the idea of creating the first urban winery in Lyon in a desire to introduce city dwellers to wine production methods.
After three years of work, Chai Saint Olive was born on September 1, 2020 in the heart of Lyon’s 6th arrondissement.
We are happy to welcome you inside our Chai Saint Olive to discover our urban wines 100% made in Lyon and made with love, including those of our Saint Olive Frères brand as well as those of our partner winegrowers – Hubert Cinquin, Jeanne Gaillard, Christophe Subrin, Jean-Michel and Viviane Tournissoux, Yves Cuilleron, Eric Rocher et Ludovic et Emmanuel Courbis.
You can come to visit our urban wine cellar, discover each stage of wine making, from the vine to the glass, and taste our urban wines with us and Marie, our cellar-master.
You are one click away from visiting the first urban winery in Lyon !
Franck & Grégoire.