Baptiste Nayrand L'Arlequin Gamay 2020

Baptiste Nayrand is one of those winemakers that natural wine fans tend to speak about with a mixture of excitement, admiration and slight panic that somebody else might buy all the bottles before they can. Based in the tiny and often overlooked Coteaux du Lyonnais region just outside Lyon, Nayrand has quietly become one of the most interesting names in modern French natural wine through a combination of obsessive vineyard work, low intervention winemaking and a very clear refusal to make wines that feel polished into submission.

Originally from the Lyon area, Baptiste Nayrand founded his domaine in 2014 after leaving behind a completely different career path and essentially starting from scratch with a handful of vineyards and a huge commitment to organic farming. From the beginning, the estate has been certified organic, with biodynamic practices heavily influencing the vineyard work as well. Everything is farmed by hand without chemical herbicides, pesticides or synthetic fertilisers, with a huge focus on soil health, biodiversity and natural balance in the vines. Which all sounds wonderfully romantic until you remember this also means an enormous amount of difficult manual labour carried out in every kind of weather imaginable.

The wines themselves sit in that beautiful space where natural winemaking feels expressive and alive without collapsing into complete chaos. Nayrand works mainly with Gamay, alongside smaller amounts of Chardonnay, Aligoté, Pinot Noir and Chenin Blanc, producing wines that feel energetic, vibrant and incredibly drinkable. Fermentations rely on native yeasts, sulphur use is kept to an absolute minimum and extraction is intentionally gentle, with whole bunch fermentation and infusion-style winemaking used to preserve freshness and finesse. Rather than huge heavy wines, the results tend to feel lifted, textured and full of movement, with bright fruit, herbal notes, earthy complexity and the kind of lively acidity that makes bottles disappear alarmingly quickly once opened.

Part of what makes Baptiste Nayrand especially interesting is the region itself. Coteaux du Lyonnais sits awkwardly between Beaujolais and the Northern Rhône, two regions with enormous global reputations that tend to overshadow everything nearby. Nayrand’s wines almost feel like they borrow little pieces from both worlds while remaining entirely their own thing. There’s Gamay purity and freshness, but also structure, savoury depth and a slightly wild edge that makes the wines feel unmistakably linked to natural wine culture without ever becoming gimmicky or forced.

The labels, the winemaking and the whole philosophy around the domaine all carry this sense of creativity and freedom rather than rigid tradition. But underneath the relaxed natural wine image there is clearly an enormous amount of precision and thought going on. These are not careless “anything goes” wines. They feel carefully farmed, carefully guided and built around expressing vineyard character as honestly as possible. Even people who normally approach natural wine with slight fear after previous encounters involving suspicious barnyard aromas and existential regret often end up surprised by how clean, balanced and joyful Nayrand’s wines feel.

In a wine world increasingly divided between ultra-polished luxury brands and chaotic hype-driven natural wine projects, Baptiste Nayrand somehow manages to land perfectly in the middle. Thoughtful, expressive, slightly wild and full of personality, but still wines you genuinely want to sit and drink rather than merely discuss for three hours in a candlelit wine bar while pretending volatile acidity is “part of the experience.”