Radical and on the move

15 years ago, Olivier Ramé's life looked very different. Together with his wife Stéphanie he lived in an apartment in Paris. He was a financial advisor, she was a marketing manager. Of course, the two liked to drink wine, especially as Stéphanie comes from a family of winemakers. But Olivier would never have thought that he would become a winemaker himself. After all, his career as an expert in corporate mergers was going very well – why think about a new start? But then the moments where Olivier had enough of the big city and the financial world piled up. When his father-in-law announced one day that he would sell his winery, a jolt went through the young Frenchman. He decided to take a completely new path. He quit his job and trained as a winemaker. However, it soon became clear that as a wine maker he did not want to follow the beaten path. So he travelled around the world for two years and visited 200 wine regions. «I wanted to gain as many experiences as possible around the topic of wine, see how it is done elsewhere and find my own style», explains the ambitious beginner. The first years as a winemaker were challenging, because the winery had been run very conventionally until then and had not bottled its wines itself but sold them to middle-men. A lot of work and a complete rethink were needed to make Maison Ventenac the innovative organic wine estate it is today. But in his free time Olivier also proves that he has no problem with taking the path less travelled. With his Gravel Bike he explores the southern French landscape as he pleases. Never getting lost but always taking the challenging route!