Sara and Charles, Les Obrieres

The Impact:

⛰️ Size: 8 Hectares

🤝 Human Impact: 12-person harvest team for manual selection.

🌱 Philosophy: Certified Organic, Vins Méthode Nature

🌳 Biodiversity: Sowing wheat and broad beans on some fallow land, conservatory of white grape varieties using regenerative hydrology, electric driving for transport within the estate, solar panels in the cellar, water recovery, presence of beehives near the vines and use of excrement from the neighbouring stable.
Barbed wire fence with vineyard rows and yellow flowers in the foreground at Domaine Les Orbrieres
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Black and white family portrait of Sarah and Charles from Domaine les Obrieres and two children holding boxes

The Story

Before we started Domaine Obrière in 2019, our lives were worlds away from the vineyard.

I, Sara, was working in HR for large corporations, while Charles was in the Bolivian Altiplano focused on rural development and goat farming.
We both came from multicultural backgrounds—I grew up near Paris with Italian roots, and Charles in rural Picardy with a French mother and Scottish father—but neither of us had a background in wine.
To be honest, I had never even seen a vine up close, and when we began, we had absolutely nothing: not a single tank, not even a pair of pruning shears.

We built everything from scratch, a total 'four-handed' creation that we’ve poured ourselves into bit by bit. We’ve been renovating an old winemaker’s house and bringing a small cellar back to life from its ashes right in the heart of a traditional Hérault village.

It makes us so proud to know that we produce 15,000 to 20,000 bottles of natural wine today. There is something truly magical about seeing the village come alive again during harvest; people stop and stare as they see the hand-picked grapes arriving in crates at the centre of town.
It brings a sense of life back to a place that had almost become a 'dormitory' village.

When we aren't in the vines or with our two children, Chiara and Alexis, you’ll find Charles rowing or swimming, while I’m into dance and Hyrox.
We still love to travel whenever we can save a little, keeping that same spirit of adventure that led us to start this journey with nothing but a dream.

Philosophy

Domaine Obrières is far more than a vineyard; it is a "laboratory of the living" where nature and scientific rigour find a perfect, uncompromising harmony.
Founded by the atypical duo of Sara and Charles—who left careers in HR and international development to start from scratch—the estate is built on the belief that "natural" does not mean "anarchy." Instead, it demands surgical precision. By mastering indigenous yeasts and optimising every fermentation, they produce vibrant, living wines that remain pure, stable, and free from aromatic flaws.

At the heart of their 8-hectare Hérault estate lies a unique conservatory of white grapes, featuring rare varieties like Villard, Aramon, and Listan Blanc. This project serves as a research hub for climate resilience and agroecology. Their philosophy extends deep into the soil: practising permaculture, sowing green fertilisers (legumes and grasses), and replacing harsh chemicals with plant-based bioprotection, such as fermented comfrey and garlic.

The name Obrières—Occitan for "worker"—honours their journey from manual labourers to estate owners. Today, their "four-handed" creation is a model of sustainability, using agroforestry and natural ponds to foster a complete ecosystem. For Sara and Charles, each bottle is a precise, ethical statement: a vision of the future of wine where tradition is reborn through innovation.
Barbed wire fence with vineyard rows and yellow flowers in the foreground at Domaine Les Orbrieres

The Vineyard: Les Obrieres

Located in the heart of the Languedoc region, near Béziers, Domaine Obrière (also known as Les Obrières) is an artisanal estate founded in 2019 by vignerons Charles Mackay and Sara Lombardi.

The 8-hectare vineyard is characterised by a diverse terroir of clay-siliceous and clay-limestone soils, where the team practices low-intervention viticulture rooted in agroecology and biodiversity.

Committed to transparency and environmental stewardship, the estate is certified Organic by Ecocert and adheres to the strict Vin Méthode Nature charter.

Their approach emphasizes manual labor—from pruning to harvests—and natural vinification using indigenous yeasts, resulting in authentic, "living" wines that reflect the raw character of the Occitan landscape.