One of the narratives frequently espoused in recent years is that Burgundy has become a plaything of the rich. It is not simply a question of who can afford to drink the Grands Crus, but that aspirant young winemakers are being squeezed out by the financial power of the super-rich – heavyweight French players such as Bernard Arnault, François Pinault or Martin Bouygues competing with American or Asian billionaires. Certainly, there have been a handful of highly publicised purchases, mergers or takeovers involving such giants, but that is very far from the whole story.
Enterprising youngsters are finding a way to establish themselves and make their winemaking dream come true, not just in less expensive regions such as the Mâconnais, where Frantz Chagnoleau and Caroline Gon are now thriving, but also in the Côte d’Or. Both Camille Thiriet in the Côte de Nuits and the dynamic duo Tomoko Kuriyama and her partner Guillaume Bott at Maison Chanterêves have discovered similar paths to success: start out as a négociant buying some grapes or juice to vinify, show your talent with the results and keep an eye out for the opportunity to farm a plot or two of vineyards. As demand builds, so too will the opportunity to purchase vines in not-too-expensive appellations. They are not alone. I could equally have chosen impressive young Australian, Belgian, German, Irish and Japanese winemakers working in the region to illustrate the theme – as well as aspiring young French men and women.
For every family cited here, there are plenty of other examples where representatives of a new generation are bringing new energy, whether by staying within their existing family domaine – like Bastien and Carole Mathias and the Buisson brothers – or setting up on their own like Edouard and Eleni Vocoret or Alvina Pernot. Benoît Moreau is also far from the only sibling in a winemaking family to separate from his brothers or sisters and create an independent winery.
It is not a question of trying to latch on to the “Stars of Tomorrow” – that is a path which can potentially lead to disappointment as prices rise (sometimes exponentially) on the secondary market. Burgundy has never been richer in talent than today, and the options are so much more widespread than in the past, not just in terms of quality vignerons but in the widening of areas of interest. While it is welcome to find new players in well-established appellations, how much more valuable to be able to buy with confidence lovingly and carefully made wines from hidden quarters of the Mâconnais, the outskirts of Tonnerre, the hilly slopes of Saint-Romain and the Hautes Côtes de Beaune, or the lesser frequented Côte de Nuits Villages appellation. Nor need we be limited to the two classic grape varieties of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as Aligoté starts to make its mark, as demonstrated by Tomoko and Guillaume at Maison Chanterêves.
*
Domaine Eleni & Edouard Vocoret, Chablis
The Vocorets have been around in Chablis for quite a while – an earlier Edouard Vocoret founded the family wine business in 1870. Domaine Vocoret & Fils, housed in what used to be the region’s dairy cooperative, aims to produce correctly made Chablis which finds a ready market at sensible prices.
The current Edouard Vocoret, however, had no intention of following this approach, preferring instead to set up with his wife Eleni, née Theodoropoulos, whose mother is German. They met when they both worked at the Allan Scott in Marlborough, New Zealand. On returning to France, Edouard apprenticed with the excellent Daniel Barraud in Pouilly-Fuissé, while Eleni worked with Vincent Dauvissat – who not only inspired the young couple (temporarily christened the Vocoropouloi) but also gave them a great deal of help in setting up a domaine of their own in Chablis.
Patrice Vocoret, Edouard’s father, passed over to the young couple five hectares of vineyard to get them started, originally they were based in a cramped rented cellar. They have now built a small winery on the road to Chichée, where they have been bottling their three different terroirs of Chablis separately: the clay-rich Boucheron, the well-exposed slopes of Pargues, and Bas de Chapelot at the foot of Montée de Tonnerre. The cherry on top has been a small holding of Premier Cru Butteaux. Vineyard treatments are organic but as yet uncertified. The grapes are hand-picked and fermented with natural yeasts. Vinification is in stainless steel and subsequent maturation in barrel, with little new wood, reflecting the Dauvissat influence. The couple make impressive, structured, relatively full-bodied Chablis, and the best is yet to come.
The 2022 vintage marks a transformation as Edouard and Eleni have been able to take on some of the finest vineyards from Edouard’s family estate, as his father, Patrice and cousins are retiring and the business is being sold. While Edouard and Eleni have no interest in taking over such a business, they have jumped at the chance to lease plots of such great vineyards as Forêts, Montée de Tonnerre, Séchets, Chatains, Butteaux and the Grands Crus Les Clos, Valmur and Blanchot. This sounds like a lot to handle, but the plan is to lease out a proportion of the existing village vineyards to youngsters who are prepared to farm them organically.
Edouard and Eleni also know that they can further refine their practices, bringing additional precision to the wines while taking small steps to enhance their vineyard work. Time is on their side.
Domaine Alain Mathias, Epineuil
If you head east out of Chablis, you may find yourself on the road to the historic city of Tonnerre and its vineyards, including the Pinot Noir vines of Bourgogne Epineuil. Epineuil is an ancient name in northern viticultural Burgundy, but by the middle of the 20th century its vineyards had largely fallen into disuse with only 10 hectares to its name at that time. Fortunately, Tonnerre’s mayor in the 1970s, André Durand, sought to revitalise the moribund appellation and – with the help of the Société d’Aménagement Foncier et d’Etablissement Rural (Les SAFER) – a project to revive the Epineuil vineyards got underway in 1977.
Among the wave of new winemakers to arrive in the early 1980s was Alain Mathias, who purchased just over seven hectares from the SAFER in 1982. His work – along with that of Dominique Gruhier (Domaine de l’Abbaye de Petit Quincy) and a few Chablisiens who invested in some of the Epineuil vineyards – kept the Bourgogne-Epineuil appellation alive, though perhaps not really flourishing, while the area under vines steadily rose to its current figure of just over 150 hectares.
So far, so good, but Epineuil is far from a household name and will require new energy to bring its potential to fruition. Step forward Bastien Mathias, son of Alain. He came top of his class at wine school – well, actually joint top with Carole, now his wife. They have been managing vinification together since 2015, and have extensive plans for the vineyards which are farmed organically, and certified as such since 2013. Picking is still by machine, except for the steep slopes of Chablis Vau de Vey (an addition to the domaine’s range in 2017) though the plan is to extend hand-harvesting to the reds and the Côte de Grisey white. Alain Mathias had two hectares of red and half a hectare of white in this historic site; the next generation has added the opposite, thus rounding things up to two and a half hectares of each colour. André Jullien’s Topographie de Tous les Vignobles Connus (first edition in 1816) considers that Grisées [sic] and neighbouring Vaumorillon are “equal in quality to several of the premières cuvées of Meursault”.
In the cellar, the young Mathias couple is not afraid to experiment, with various earthenware eggs and terracotta amphorae in evidence. Bastien explains the variations in porosity depending on the material and its cooking temperature, with earthenware being the least porous, terracotta the most, with barrels in between. Domaine Mathias is showing a fine range of 2020 and 2021 wines, indicating that Bastien and Carole are clearly on the right trajectory.
Domaine Camille Thiriet, Côte de Nuits
It might seem a tough call to try and start out in Burgundy’s glamorous Côte de Nuits from scratch, but Camille Thiriet’s dreams of doing precisely that are coming true. In 2022, she was able to purchase Domaine Gilles Jourdan (on Gilles Jourdan’s retirement), bringing winery buildings in Corgoloin to supplement her original small base in Comblanchien, along with several hectares of additional vineyards, including the Monopole of Côte de Nuits-Villages La Robignotte. As a result of her increasing land holdings, her business has been renamed Domaine Camille Thiriet, having been formerly known as Maison MC Thiriet and then Maison Thiriet.
Camille once had ambitions of becoming a perfume “nose” but felt that she was not up to the necessary standard in science to excel in that field, so she switched her interests to wine. An early job was managing sales for Nicolas Potel, who was at that point established in Beaune with his Domaine de Bellene, Maison Roche de Bellene and Collection Bellenum. Also on the team, as Potel’s cellarmaster, was Matt Chittick, and the couple has been together ever since. The pair scraped up enough cash to make 2,000 bottles from the 2016 vintage in a cellar without electricity – so no light or heat – while, fortunately, Matt retained a day job to bring in some income.
Camille may have come into the world of the Côte d’Or from outside, but she has not forgotten her family roots; her grandmother was born in Arbois and subsequently worked as a teacher in Vézelay (in the Yonne department), and this has encouraged Camille to make cuvées of these interesting appellations (though she could not get the grapes in 2021).
Camille’s own vines, and indeed the great majority of purchased grapes, are farmed organically. The direction of travel for the reds is towards whole-bunch fermentation, but Camille will continue to use the protective values of sulphur, albeit at reduced levels. Both colours of wine impress for their personalities, combining a depth of flavour while remaining light on their feet.
Progress was slow at first: 3,500 bottles in 2017 rising to 6,000 in 2018, but already recognition was beginning to come. To taste was to believe. Production more than doubled to around 14,000 bottles in 2019, remaining stable in 2020 and even in the short 2021 vintage, thanks to the purchase of a new vineyard, Clos de Magny. In 2022, they should produce nearly twice as many bottles thanks to the addition of the former Domaine Jourdan vineyards. As a result, Matt has joined Camille full-time, leaving his position as chef de cave (cellarmaster) at Domaine de Villaine in Bouzeron.
Camille Thiriet is undoubtedly one of Burgundy’s outstanding success stories of the last few years, despite her “grandest” appellation being Côte de Nuits-Villages. In 2021, even before the addition of the Jourdan wines, she made no less than six cuvées from this appellation which she and fellow winemaking friends such as Alix Millot and Étienne Julien are bringing into the limelight. Science aside, I am sure Camille would have made an excellent “nose”. There is a startling clarity to the flavours of her wines.
Maison Chanterêves, Savigny-lès-Beaune
Not far down the road from Camille Thiriet, Tomoko Kuriyama and her partner Guillaume Bott are doing wonderful things under their Chanterêves label, having started out as a small-scale négociant in Savigny-lès-Beaune. Their original label was going to be Chanterives (after their street), but a producer elsewhere in the world using that name complained – so they switched to Chanterêves instead, which – to their benefit – evokes the song of dreams.
The couple met when Tomoko, who had been making wine in Germany, worked the 2005 harvest at Domaine Simon Bize, where Guillaume had been working since 2002. After 20 years there, Guillaume has now left to devote himself full-time to Chanterêves, a project which is blossoming after obtaining four and a half hectares of its own vineyards in 2020. The couple already owned vines in Chorey-lès-Beaune, to which an exciting plot in the Dessus de Montchenevoy vineyard in Savigny-lès-Beaune has been added, as well as a thrilling selection of plots in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune. The various négociant cuvées which they have been making over the last 10 years or so continue, but there is now a new and thrilling focus – Aligoté.
Guillaume and Tomoko are not the only pioneers of single-vineyard Aligotés – try those from the northern Côte de Nuits trio of Sylvain Pataille, Laurent Fournier and Jérôme Galeyrand for equally exquisite outcomes – yet the results here are absolutely compelling. One cuvée comes from 100-year-old vines at the foot of the Côte in Ladoix (Les Chagnots) while the remainder are from slopes of varying steepness in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune: Bas des Ees, Mainbey, Miarlons du Bas and my favourite which is Les Monts de Fussey. Every wine is different, thus demonstrating that Aligoté is every bit as good a translator of terroir as Chardonnay.
The vineyards are farmed organically but without certification. There is no destemming machine, so the reds are made entirely with whole bunches. Vinification of their own grapes is without sulphur, and there is no pumping over, just a light foot-treading to break up the cap. A great deal of attention is taken to avoid any sign of deviation – Tomoko and Guillaume, relatively “natural” though they may be in approach, are by no means in the wild and woolly camp. They make beautiful wines, whether from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay or Aligoté. With wines of this quality from such minor appellations, one wonders what they might do if and when the opportunity to avail of fruit from grander vines comes their way.
Domaine Henri & Gilles Buisson, Saint-Romain
Also favouring a more “natural” style of wine are brothers Frédéric and Franck who represent the eighth generation of Buissons in Saint-Romain. The family has been present in the village since the 12th century and vignerons here since 1758. Grandfather Henri began domaine bottling when Saint-Romain gained its appellation in 1947, while his son Gilles increased the vineyard holdings from five hectares to 14 in the 1980s. At that stage, the domaine could be considered as a sound source for good wines from one of the backwater villages of the Côte de Beaune.
Now, a new chapter in the domaine’s story has begun under the stewardship of Frédéric and Franck. They have almost 20 hectares with another two yet to plant. Fred is in charge of production, having had experience in South America (with Pascal Marchand) and in Puligny with Anne-Claude Leflaive, as well as a stint as a sommelier in London under his belt.
Here, the story is two-fold – not just the development of the family domaine, but also the concurrent arrival of Saint-Romain as a thoroughly interesting source of both white and red Burgundy. Up until recently, the best-known producer in Saint-Romain was probably Domaine Alain Gras, which makes an excellent wine in each colour. Few, if any, were producing single-vineyard bottlings from this appellation, until the new generation of Buissons set to work. Now you will find a whole range chez Buisson vineyard bottlings: Combe Bazin and two versions of Sous Roche in red, alongside Le Jarron, En Poillange, La Perrière, Sous le Château and Sous la Velle in white.
The domaine has been certified organic since 2008, and biodynamic since 2019. The brothers have planted a variety of trees around the edges of their vineyards, and are careful not to mow the verges early in the season because of the number of small birds, such as larks, which nest there. The vineyards are grassed between the rows but tilled underneath the vines. Full-sized tractors have been replaced by lighter caterpillar versions, and every plot seems to have its own viticultural experiment in hand. The brothers hope to keep improving how they manage their land.
Their vinification and maturation processes are just as forward-thinking. The whites are crushed before pressing and vinified without sulphur, while the reds are now vinified typically with about one-third whole bunches and very low sulphur levels – or none at all for the Absolu bottlings. These are wines of character, purity and intensity while maintaining an appealing freshness: “We are looking for the vibrations – and that you can finish the bottle,” says Franck.
Benoît Moreau, Chassagne-Montrachet & Beaujolais
While the brothers Buisson work together at the family domaine, Benoît, younger son of Bernard Moreau, decided in 2021 to set up a new winery of his own in an industrial zone below the main road (D974) in Chassagne-Montrachet. Previously, Benoît had been working alongside his brother, Alexandre, at Domaine Bernard Moreau et Fils – with Benoît more in the vineyards, and Alex in the cellar and more customer-facing. And, over the last decade or more, Domaine Bernard Moreau has deservedly earned a place on the podium of top domaines in Chassagne-Montrachet.
Benoît, however, wanted to establish himself on his own with a slightly different vision to that of his brother: so now, after a promising inaugural 2020 vintage where Benoît created wines with 100% grapes bought from friends in the region, we have potentially two great Moreau domaines instead of one.
When he left the family business, Benoît took with him his share of vineyards, totalling just over four hectares, including some first-class sites. There is a village plot of Chassagne-Montrachet Les Charrières which is being bottled separately, while the Premiers Crus include Les Chenevottes, La Maltroie, two plots in Morgeot and the superb Grandes Ruchottes. Benoît has decided to make and bottle the two plots of Morgeot separately. One is from Les Fairendes, a vineyard which a number of growers are now separating out at the northern end of Morgeot. The other is quite unexpected: La Cardeuse, below the Route des Grands Crus, towards the southern end of the appellation. Domaine Bernard Moreau has long been famous for its red wine from this site. Benoît’s share of the vineyard includes a small plot of 0.15 hectares of Chardonnay, deliberately planted in white in 1955 to make good use of a limestone outcrop in the middle of the vineyard. The 2021 vintage suggests that this is well worth bottling separately.
In addition to these, Benoît has acquired just under two hectares of Beaujolais plots in Chiroubles and Morgon, the wines from which will be sold under his L’Arlésienne label. The vineyards are farmed biodynamically and, where possible, worked by horse and by hand, with the vines in some plots no longer being hedged but managed by tressaging the shoots. In the cellar, the wines will be aged up to 18 months in barrel, with minimal new oak.
All the boxes for cutting-edge Burgundy wine production are being ticked, and the wines tasted so far in Benoît’s brand new cellar are excellent. There will be a temptation to compare and contrast wines from the same vineyards from the two brothers but that may miss the point – they are both producing exceptional wines.
Alvina Pernot, Puligny-Montrachet
In the next-door village to Benoît Moreau, Alvina Pernot is responsible for one of several new winery buildings in Puligny-Montrachet – an appellation which has, arguably, been in need of some new entrants to challenge the established order. To the eye, her winery is undoubtedly the most stylish of the recent constructions, though there is a sense that it may already be too small for Alvina’s ambitions.
Alvina is granddaughter of the legendary Paul Pernot, and while maintaining affiliations with the mother ship, or should I say grandfather-ship, she has also struck out on her own, assisted by her husband Philippe Abadie, who trained first in business and then as a wine merchant. Most of Alvina’s wines to date are officially of négociant status, albeit frequently made with purchases from the family, but in this way she and her husband can start to develop their own course and steer their own ship – if I can revert to my somewhat heavy-handed metaphor.
Despite the small volumes of the 2021 vintage, Alvina has branched out to make three different Bourgogne Côte d’Or bottlings from individual plots (La Rue de Bois, Les Femelottes and L’Epée). Until recently, very few producers made single-vineyard bottlings of village Puligny, let alone generic Bourgogne, but now Alvina is one of those leading the way – along with another recent newcomer to Puligny, Domaine Thomas-Collardot. She has very few vineyards of her own, thus far, but is able to get must (grape juice) from her grandfather’s estate. To compare wines of the exact same provenance under the two labels is fascinating. The Alvina Pernot wines display a more elegant style than the equivalent cuvée from Domaine Paul Pernot. Delaying the racking and bottling makes a clear difference. Yet the real jewels in her cellar are the cuvées where Alvina has control of the grapes, especially at the key moment of pressing them. For this she has invested in a vertical press and it is really paying off. Taste, for example, her Puligny-Montrachet Clos des Noyers Brets and be instantly convinced.
If Alvina and Philippe can do this well just through tweaks in the cellar, imagine what might be possible one day if and when the vineyards themselves come fully under their control.
A special tribute should be paid to Alvina and her new born son for their innate vigneron intelligence. Pâris (named for his maternal great-grandfather and with the final “s” pronounced) arrived a week late – on the first of January 2022 – thus ensuring his birth date matches a great vintage!
Domaine Frantz Chagnoleau, Pierreclos
As many fans of Burgundy will now be aware, great wine is not limited to the Côte d’Or and Chablis. In fact, one of the most exciting areas of the region for quality wines made on a small scale at affordable prices is the Mâconnais. There is even a group called Les Artisans Vignerons de Bourgogne du Sud, for whom the spokesman is a certain Frantz Chagnoleau. Frantz runs a small domaine in the village of Pierreclos, with his partner Caroline Gon, who has recently joined him full-time. Both halves of the couple achieved their respective oenology degrees in 2004, and soon found themselves working for some of the most interesting, cutting-edge producers in the Mâconnais region: Frantz with Olivier Merlin, and Caroline with Dominique Lafon at the Héritiers du Comte Lafon. Both Olivier and Dominique have nothing but praise for the couple and their wines.
Frantz was the first to leave his day job to start their own domaine in 2010, based in the relatively unheralded village of Pierreclos, tucked away behind the north-western section of Pouilly-Fuissé. He had no doubts about working his own vines organically from the start (they are certified by ECOCERT) as well as buying in grapes. Unusually for this part of Burgundy, all the wines are made with the same care and attention as those of grander appellations in the Côte d’Or.
Frantz began the organic certification process from his first vintage, 2010. Since 2014, they have been more or less self-sufficient, managing nine hectares, so the wines are now made from their own fruit, though there may still be some cuvées from purchased grapes from time to time. New plantings are on the way in the form of Aligoté, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, including a single plot of Mâcon-Cruzille Au Quin Château. A more outré decision is to plant some Savagnin with local vigneron colleagues Nicolas Maillet and Sébastien Boilleau: three small plots to be vinified together as a team effort.
The main offer comes from several different bottlings of Saint-Véran, plus a lovely single-vineyard Mâcon-Villages, Clos Saint Pancras, and two versions of Pouilly-Fuissé: Madrigal comes from vineyards in Vergisson and Solutré, while Pastoral is a barrel selection from the best sites, given a longer élevage.
Frantz and Caroline take particular care with the élevage of all of their wines, choosing different forms of wood according to site and vintage. Frantz is keen on Stockinger foudres (large wooden vats), for example, to calm down wines from hotter vintages. With all such details carefully considered and taken care of, the difficulty is not so much in choosing which of several cuvées might be the one to buy – but in being able to find them in the open marketplace at all.
*
There are many more recently created, up-and-coming, or resurgent domaines that could potentially have been included here. This survey has left so many corners of Burgundy unaccounted for. Enterprising wine merchants and collectors alike will always seek to dig out nuggets of quality wine production from all around the region, many of them at prices which are (and need to remain) reasonable. As alert readers of this piece will have noticed, winemaking is no longer biased by gender as it would have been a generation ago. Alvina, Camille, Carole, Caroline and Eleni have staked their claims alongside Bastien, Benoît, Edouard, Frantz and the brothers Buisson. These are exciting times indeed.
Explore all Burgundy or read more Editorial
With thanks to Gaëlle from The Hidden France for the production of this shoot. Images shot on location at the 1243 Bourgogne Society in Beaune
