Jean-Marc Enixon
Jean-Marc Enixon Vineyard Manager and Winemaker at Culmina Winery.
France is also the country of origin for Culmina’s new winemaker, Jean-Marc Enixon. A recent arrival to the South Okanagan, he worked briefly at Osoyoos Larose, but soon found the ideal fit as Culmina’s vineyard manager and winemaker.
From a rural area of Charente, the region famous for Cognac he obtained a National Engineering Diploma in Agriculture at the Purpan Engineering School in Toulouse. Focusing on winemaking and viticulture, he spent an entire year “researching the relationship between vine water stress and grape maturity.” After a couple of vintages in Sonoma County and in the province of Gansu, China, Enixon returned to France to work as the winemaking director of Château Puy Guilhem, a winery located in the hills of Saillans, in the Fronsac appellation northwest of St. Emilion. AOC Fronsac is a bastion of red wine produced primarily from Cabernet Franc. After the sale of that business to a Chinese group in 2014, Enixon began to search the world for opportunities to craft wine. And the Okanagan Valley is the better for it.