A champion of the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune, fourth-generation vigneron Sébastien Magnien talks to us about terroir, experience over education and the 2019 vintage.   “I’ve been in the vineyard and the cellar since birth,” says Sébastien Magnien, fourth-generation winegrower from the small village of Meloisey in the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune. “Both of my grandfathers were winegrowers.”  Sébastien Magnien in the Hautes-Côtes Sébastien has made a name for himself as a champion of the Hautes-Côtes de […]

Dubbed “the magician of the Mâconnais”, Olivier Merlin has helped transform the reputation of Burgundy’s most southerly terroir. Here, he talks 2019, climate change and the arrival of the next generation. Olivier Merlin is at a tipping point in his career. In his three-plus decades as a winemaker, he has diligently and dynamically worked to […]

We catch up with Dominique Lafon, a leading vigneron in Burgundy for well over 30 years. He recalls starting out in the 1980s and explains why he did it all again in 2008.  Dominique Lafon joined his family business, Domaine des Comtes Lafon, in 1987. In 2008, he started making a few wines under his own eponymous label. “It was the […]

First-generation vigneron Benjamin Leroux is one of Burgundy’s best-known figures. We talk to him about his motivations, job satisfaction and the logistical challenge of making over 50 wines per year. “I used to be offended when people would open my wines after a year or two,” says Benjamin Leroux – the 45-year-old vigneron who in the past decade or so […]