Managing Director of the Châteauneuvoise house of Grandes-Serres (owned by the Burgundy Picard group) since 2011, Breton Samuel Montgermont, 49, has just been elected this morning at the head of the Union des maisons de vins du Rhône (UMVR ), the professional body of Rhône wine merchants. He takes over from Etienne Maffre, CEO of the Vaucluse merchant Gabriel Meffre.
The UMVR represents seventy trading houses (creators of cuvées from the purchase of grapes or pieces of wine) from the northern Rhône (Rhône, northern Drôme, Loire and Ardèche) to the southern Rhône (southern Drôme, Vaucluse and Gard). Rhone trading houses produce almost half of the PDO wines of the Rhône valley.
Elected for three years, Samuel Montgermont takes the presidency of the UMVR in a difficult context, marked by American taxes on French wines, the global Covid crisis and, on the domestic market, the return to fashion of light reds, lively and fruity Beaujolais or Loire style, quite far from the aromatic profile of the southern Rhône in particular.
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