An association where blind tasting has real meaning

he crowdfunding campaign by the LesWineMesCoeurs group has already raised €11,180 to produce wines again in 2025 by bringing together industry members (winegrowers, sommeliers…) and people with sight impairments or suffering from blindness with a connection to the wine world. Hopes are that the campaign will be able to go even further and host the largest blind wine tasting, explains Thibaud Vermillard, the chairman and founder of the LesWineMesCoeurs association. As a winegrower, he co-founded Domaine Ampelhus in 2013 in Lunel Viel, near Montpellier in the South of France. An agricultural engineer specialising in growing trees, he brought his grandfather’s vineyard blocks back on-stream by opting for heritage grape varieties. He has had to gradually adapt to his failing sight, caused by a genetic illness, which led him to create the association and to combine his profession and his disability. He provides an incubator for the group and welcomed its first vintage in 2024.

“The wine world and visual impairment are very compatible”, claims Vermillard, noting that although vineyard management tasks need good vision – which is why he brings in service providers – work in the winery can be done through a sensory approach by using feelings. The LesWineMesCoeurs group allows people with a visual disability to take part in the grape harvest and winemaking or blending process. It aims to use the resultant wines to raise awareness of visual impairments at tastings held in conjunction with other associations.