The New ("Natural | Classical") Burgundy

WINE TALK
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I was in Burgundy for a quick 48 hours to attend a Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin event where a friend was knighted and the overall guest of honor. I decided to use this opportunity to continue my exploration of a group of producers that can be described as mostly from outside the region and working in a manner that is comparable to natural wine.

Some of the producers in this group include:

vin.noe, started by Jonathan Purcell, an American who trained in Napa

Laisse Tomber, started by Bastian Wolber, a German from Baden. His Brother Christoph owns Wasenhaus.

Les Horees, started by Catharina Saddle, a German who is a former Chef who went to Geisenheim. She has worked at DRC, Domain Marquis d’Angerville, Domaine Cecil Tremblay and even a short stint early in her wine exploration at Schäfer-Fröhlich.

Chanterêves, started by Tomoko Kuriyama and Guillaume Bott. Interestingly Tomoko also trained in Germany at Paul Fürst, Peter Jakob Kühn, and Hermann Schmoranz of Weingut Georg Breuer and has a degree from Geisenheim.

Jessica Litaud who trained with Jean-Francois Ganevat and with Jean-Marie Guffens-Heynen.

Icy Liu - Moved to Burgundy from NYC to work for Becky Wasserman. She is making her own wine. She is also a central figure in the group and set up my appointments this past weekend.

As you can see there are a lot similarities with these winemakers. Most are from outside the region. Almost all trained at top Domains that are in the classical camp and all are in my opinion inspired by the natural winemaking scene. Much like in Germany I think they are bridging the gap between classical and natural wines. And similar to Germany they are also working with non Pinot and Chard grapes like Aligote and Gamay, to me the renaissance of Aligote is akin to what the Silvaner revolution.

Generally the wines are squeaky clean. They are also approachable young and have an ethereal freshness with vivid fruit flavors and pair extremely well with wine. And show their uniqueness of Terrior otherwise whats the point of making wine in Burgundy.

Interesting this group does not talk much about the original pioneers of the Burgundian natural wine Phillipe Pacalet, Fred Cossard, Prieure Roch, among others. Maybe it is just generational? I had too many questions for them and did not delve into this too much, I plan to on future visits. I have tasted with all of these winemakers multiple times over the year and consider Phillipe to be a dear friend so I am very curious.

On a past trip I met with Jonathan from vin.noe and on this trip I was able to meet with Bastion and Catharina.

This a truly exciting movement in Burgundy. BUT here is the problem and no one is more troubled by it than the winemakers. I am guessing due to the Bizot and Charles Lauchaux effect, the secondary market prices for these micro domains are just insane. This is not what these wines are about. They are beautiful wines meant to be drunk early on with wonderful food and friends. I hope it does not ultimately ruin this beautiful movement…

My IG posts below.

https://www.instagram.com/soilpimp/?img_index=1

Hope this is interesting to some, I am clearly very excited about this and wanted to share!

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Nice post. We work with most of your list, and there are a good few one could add.

I was at a salon this morning with many growers from this ‘nouvelle vague’.

It’s quite exciting.

What to do about secondary prices? It’s tough. We limit purchases and tie them as bundles. Also we mark the back label with our stamp.

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Thank you Russell. That means a lot coming from you. Please add any other producers you feel should be on this list. I for one would very much appreciate it.

I just hope the secondary market prices come down to reality, I have seen pricing on the Premier Crus of $500-800 for some of these wines.

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Here’s some old thoughts!

It depends how precise one wants to be on ‘outsiders’.

Maison Harbour
Maison Skyaasan
Si Tu Sais

For other producers I like who aren’t out and out ‘outsiders’ but are in the same bracket style wise.

Dandelion
Marthe Henry
Raphaelle Guyot
Fiona Leroy
Domaine Didon
Ami
Derain
Chaume de lies
Glandien
Jeremy Recchione
Arnaud Lopez
Antoine Lienhardt

(Excuse omissions etc - on the road. We sell a good few of those listed).

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Thanks many of those are new to me. Antoine Lienhardt is getting a lot of attention in NYC.

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The wines from Renaud Boyer are near the top, definitely should be added to the list.

The market pricing for Horées is silly.

Chapuis worked for Pacalet.

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Robert, thanks for this. Chantereves and Litaud are available in Canada and are great. Going to Paris in a couple of weeks and would love to try Laisse Tomber and Les Horees. Any idea of where I might try these in Paris? Thanks in advance!

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I know they are around Paris. Les Enfants du Marche had the first vintage of Laisse Tomber. You might also try their next door neighbor The Butcher of Paris.

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This is certainly more about philosophy and style than being an outsider. It just so happens a lot of the winemakers who are making wines like this are outsiders, similar to the Alt Mosel scene.

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I was wondering what your thoughts are on Altaber? I believe he worked for Derain.

I’m curious because Altaber is reasonably available to me in my market, but I have not gotten around to trying his wines yet.

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Only two bottles I think. One I liked and one I didn’t.

I didn’t try them today. No time.

Sorry.

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Perfect, we were planning on visiting Les Enfants on Sunday for lunch, merci!

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I think at least a number of these producers thrive on scarcity, so the the high secondary market prices are a natural (and anticipated) consequence. That’s neither good nor bad, but it is, to some extent, by design.

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Thanks for the post Robert.

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How new is new?

For me the eye opener, a few years back, was the wines from Marc Soyard. He comes from Jura, trained at Bizot for many years and now has this crazy setup with the city of Dijon where he basically pay rent in X amount of bottles.

There are also a new generation within Burgundy.
Recently I had a very good wine from
Jean-Baptiste Boudier (Aloxe-Corton, Les Combes), who went on his own path as he could not agree on the approach with his dad apparently. Trained at many places outside of Burgundy before returning home.

But yes the market is silly. I like the wines from Jessica Litaud, but flipped most of my 2019’s as people offered a lot more than I paid only a year after I purchased them.

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I had a 2020 Bourgogne from Altaber just this weekend. Very reductive aromas on opening, but the purity of the fruit on the palate was immediately impressive. Left half a bottle overnight and the reductive aspects had blown off. Overall solid value in the context of Burgundy these days. I would buy again if I saw on a store shelf but it wasn’t compelling enough that I’m actively seeking more out. But of course this was just the basic Bourgogne, would be curious to try higher end stuff.

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I have mixed feelings on “natural” Burgundy - mostly because a lot of them I find indistinguishable from a lot of other small-production natural French wines which are (or used to be!) half the price.

Truthfully, I was once quite taken by Chanterêves when I first encountered them in 2019ish but when I’ve had them in recent years I find them lacking. It appears the winemaking philosophy/dogma has taken precedence over making good wines; if you’re producing ~12% ABV wines in 2018, for example, you’re just not taking what the year is giving you & and you’re straight-up missing the vintage. Like a lot of natty Burgundy, I find the reds to be lacking in concentration/depth and super stem-influenced without the stuffing to carry them. A lot of the whites seem to have a grassy, herbaceous/chamomile quality that I assume comes from some length of skin contact without much of the minerality and depth I associate with white Burgundy.

Julian Altaber’s wines, for me, are nigh-undrinkable. VA, spritzy, often reductive to a literal fault.

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My thoughts as well.

Chantereves is by no means new. The retailer around the corner had discovered them early on, around 2015, and we were drinking them regularly back them. Good, classical style Burgundy, both red and white, priced accordingly. And they were not flying off the shelves, Tomoko came by once to help promote the wines.
I must still have 3-4 cases of 15‘s and 16‘s left. And then a couple years later they took a sharp turn into the non intervention territory, resulting in (in my opinion) less interesting, sometimes flawed wines. The accessibility had dried out a couple years later, meaning that the found buyers in other markets. Good on them but I am not interested anymore.

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The good thing for lovers of the status quo, is that it continues for 99.9% of grapes grown in Burgundy.

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New was used loosely, if you look at this history of wine in Burgundy 2015 could be considered “new”.

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