I had the pleasure to meet and taste with Tomoko, one half of the wife and husband team that own and run this small but mighty domaine at La Paulee NYC. I talked with her about the wines they make and the special care and attention they pay in the vineyards they work. That hard work in the vineyard clearly yields exceptional fruit that is the foundation for their very attention worthy wines. The wines have a profound purity and ethereal sense to them, terroir driven and transparent to place and vintage. Mainbey is the biggest lieu-dit of the domaine, divided into three Chardonnay parcels and one Aligoté parcel that makes this wine.

• Variety: Aligoté
• Vine Age: Planted in 1980
• Terroir: On the slope of a valley adjacent to the village of Fussey, at 470m altitude. Very stony soils with big blocks of limestone.
• Viticulture (domaine): Organic with biodynamic methods and phytotherapy (see domaine profile for full details).
• Vinification: Crushed, long (6-hour) press cycle, ambient yeast fermentation with pied de cuve, aged 12 months in 228L and/or 600L barrels, no fining, occasional light filtration, minimal SO2 addition only if necessary during aging and before bottling.

Winery Information

• Location: Savigny-lès-Beaune, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy
• Varieties: Pinot Noir, Gamay, Chardonnay, Aligoté
• Viticulture: Their own vineyards are farmed organically, with biodynamic methods (not certified) and phytotherapy. Purchased grapes may be sustainable, organic or biodynamic.

2020 marked an exciting pivot for Tomoko and Guillaume, as they acquired several plots with incredible potential, mostly in the Hautes Côtes de Beaune. They farm these vineyards organically, using phytotherapy approaches researched and recommended by Eric Petiot, a pioneering plant scientist based in Lausanne.

For the Aligoté and Pinot Noir, minimal copper is used against downy mildew and low fat milk against powdery mildew. Skim milk is actually is the most effective because the fat in whole milk clogs the nozzles of the sprayer. With Chardonnay, they must spray with a mix of sulfur rather than with milk, but they are able to minimize the sulfur dose by mixing in potassium bicarbonate.

In the Hautes Côtes, where the row width is 2.5m, they limit plowing to only around the vines with a lightweight caterpillar tractor. They, thus, leave 1.5m of permanent natural cover crop in the middle of the rows. The other vineyards are plowed by horse by Gilbert Simond, who is a master in his field. He is the most coveted horse plower of the Côte, hired by everyone from Domaine de Montille to Domaine Des Comtes Lafon. The soils are tilled from mid-April to mid-July only, with no tilling for the other 8 months of the year. In mid-July, after the last tilling, they manually sow a mix of 13 different perennial and annual plant species to de-compact the soil and build organic mass for better water retention, increased biodiversity and healthier soil composition. These seeds are all certified organic.