Guillaume Fabre, Clos Solène
Last Year's 2020 Special Guest Speaker
Born and raised in the Southeast of France, Narbonne, Guillaume comes from a family of grape growers and winemakers. After 24 years in Narbonne, he moved to Bordeaux. Both regions, famous for their wines, are also very different from each other. It requires some grape growing and winemaking experience to switch from one to the other, such as different climates, soil types, vine illnesses and more. But life is full of surprises. Not convinced he wanted to make wine in Bordeaux, he took a harvest internship at L’Aventure in Paso Robles. The same bolt of lighting that he felt for Solène struck again. He fell in love with the soil and terroir of Paso Robles. What was supposed to be a 3-month harvest internship, turned into 6 months, and he was offered the position of Assistant Winemaker. While working for L’Aventure, Guillaume worked day and night on his own project - to launch his very own brand. In 2007, Clos Solène was born.