The Domaine de Trevallon is now so well-known that it is easy to forget that it is not that long ago since it was founded. One of the pioneers of the wine-growing renaissance that took place in the region around Les Baux, Eloi Dürrbach planted the first vines in the Alpilles in 1973. "My father, René Dürrbach, who was a friend of the painter, Albert Gleizes, one of the forerunners of Cubism, used to come and visit him in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, back in the 1950s," said Eloi Dürrbach. "At the time, we lived in Cavalaire, on the French Riviera, where I was born."

"My father wanted to find somewhere more peaceful to live and, in 1955, bought the Trevallon farmhouse, surrounded by 60 hectares of scrubland. Back then, nothing grew here, there was nothing but rock. But my father always thought it would be an excellent place to make wine. In the early 1970's, I was studying architecture at the Beaux Arts, in Paris, and I left it all to come and grow vines here. That was in 1973!"

The Herculean task of clearing the scrubland and laying out the plots for the vines then began. The rock was broken up with dynamite, the ground was worked at deep level, mixing the splinters of rock into the soil. At last, in the winter of 1973, Eloi Dürrbach was able to plant his first 3 hectares of vines. He produced his first Trevallon wine from the 1976 harvest.