Maison Leroy, Savigny les Beaune 1er Cru AOC, Les Narbantons

About Maison Leroy

In 1988 Lalou Bize-Leroy purchased the Domaine Charles N ellat in Vosne Roman e and renamed it Domaine Leroy, which included the buildings and cellars which are now the domaine s headquarters, and a wonderful array of vineyards including Richebourg, Roman e St Vivant, Clos de Vougeot, premier crus Vignerondes and Boudots in Nuits and Beaumonts and Brul es in Vosne. The following year further vineyards were purchased from Domaine Philippe Remy, including Clos de la Roche, Latrici res-Chambertin, and Le Chambertin, while further holdings have been added since. The domaine has been farmed biodynamically from the start and is now certified by ECOCERT. This minimizes entrecoeurs and second crop bunches forming, as well as leaving the vine happier and healthier. Domaine Leroy was among the first to start using horses to plough the vines, but managing the artisans who own and operate the horses proved insurmountable. Lalou Bize-Leroy has 23 hectares of vines, mostly Premier and Grand Cru classified. Domaine Leroy is blessed with a heritage of ancient vines, in part because Lalou Bize-Leroy never grubs up and replants. Instead, she replaces individual missing vines, from her own cuttings, but never too many at once in a given vineyard. These old vines combined with her training and pruning policy, restricting the bunches to just four per vine, explain in part the concentration of Leroy wines. The average yield across appellations and vintages at Domaine Leroy is around 16 hl/ha. After rigorous deselection on the sorting tables, which employ as many people as there are pickers, the grapes are placed, stemmed and all, in wooden fermenting vats. After fermentation, the wines are matured in new barrels from Cadus and Fran ois Fr res.