You don’t need to recognise Japanese to notice the three brushed characters on this label: 天地人 (Heaven, Earth, Man). Japanese Kanji writing on a bottle of French wine, and from Burgundy of all places, where the family name on a label usually belongs to people who have tended the same vineyards for generations.
Burgundian vineyards tend to pass through the same family names for generations. A young winemaker could inherit the land they will work along with the family name that will appear on the bottle. Outsiders rarely get a foothold. Yet sommelier, Koji Nakada, and his wife Jae Hwa Park arrived with no land, no investors, no immediate Burgundian connection to build a house from scratch that quickly received the public blessing of some of the region’s most revered winemakers. Amongst their ardent advocates were the late Henri Jayer whose mastery of Pinot Noir shaped a generation of Burgundy growers. Even established domaines would have treasured backers like these.
Winemakers and husband-wife team, Koji Nakada and Jae Hwa Park (Source: Jeannie Cho Lee MW)
Founded in 2000, the Gevrey-Chambertin-based Maison Lou Dumont is a négociant led by Koji and Jae Hwa – widely celebrated as one of the very first non-Europeans to establish a serious winemaking operation in Burgundy. The couple also work on their own Burgundian vineyards, bottled under Domaine Koji et Jae Hwa, and vines in Champagne’s Aube region under Champagne Nakada Park. Each name belongs to a different stage of the Korean-Japanese couple’s ambitious winemaking journey in France. Theirs’ is a seemingly unlikely winemaking story that began as a romance between two French-language students in Djion and eventually found an audience well beyond wine.
Domaine Koji et Jae Hwa Aligote 1908 (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
The wine student who kept missing French classes
Koji and Jae Hwa first met in a beginners’ French class in Dijon in 1996. A former history lecturer, Jae Hwa had arrived hoping to pursue a career in art restoration. Koji had come to France determined to make wine.
By happenstance, Jae Hwa first came to Dijon simply because of the inexpensive French course provided there. While the studious Jae Hwa took her French lessons seriously, Koji seemed to spend more time eating, drinking and making merry. Yet each time she saw him in class, his French would have improved. She came to realised that he was learning French by speaking to people.
After several wine dates, Koji succeeded in conveying the beauty of French wine to Jae Hwa. The couple studied at a winemaking academy in Beaune. Then it came time to part – Jae Hwa planned to return to Korea and work in wine importation. She telephoned Koji to bid him farewell.
Koji switched on his charm once again and persuaded her to become a winemaker in France with him. And so she did.
Founding Maison Lou Dumont
Maison Lou Dumont was officially established in 2000. It bore the name of Lou – the couple’s goddaughter – while Dumont (“of the mountain”) was simply a reference to the mountaneous landscapes in which Jae Hwa and Koji grew up back in South Korea and Japan respectively.
(Source: Nouvelles Selections)
They began by bottling wine produced by other Burgundian producers, procured and aged in oak barrels. Deciding what to buy was already hard work. Jae Hwa recalled gathering ten years of Guide Hachette des Vins results (an annual wine-buying guide prepared by blind tasters) and compared the records of producers and vineyards. Her search took in Corton and Charmes-Chambertin, as well as sites around Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges. Koji took charge of the cellar.
Beginning in 2001, they took on a larger role and began buying grapes and fresh-pressed must, carrying out vinification themselves. 2001 was the first vintage made by the couple’s own hand. The change allowed them to decide more than how long a wine would spend in barrel: they could guide the wine through its fermentation.
By the 2002 vintage, the Guide Hachette itself already recognised Lou Dumont’s quality. It awarded two stars to their 2002 Savigny-lès-Beaune, describing a full-bodied, firm wine that could develop over five to ten years.
In early 2003, Koji and Jae Hwa moved the house to Gevrey-Chambertin. As Lou Dumont became increasingly specialised in the Côte de Nuits, the Gevrey location put Koji and Jae Hwa right amongst the growers and vineyards from which he was sourcing. That May, they held a party to celebrate the move. Henri Jayer was among the guests who showed up.
Finding a voice with Henri Jayer’s stamp of approval
Jayer’s presence would have meant a great deal to any young Burgundy house. The revered vintner from Vosne-Romanée had been one of the most influential winemakers in the history of Burgundy, whose personal effort and skill elevated the standing of Burgundy Pinot Noirs to another level. His work in restoring what are now some of the most coveted Premier Cru vineyards in Burgundy and pioneering approaches in the cellar (100% destemming, cold maceration, no-filtration) helped demonstrate that Pinot Noir could have both enormous flavour and delicacy – two aspects that are notoriously difficult to combine in Pinot Noir winemaking.
One of the most influential modern winemakers from Burgundy, Henri Jayer.
Koji arrived in France as an outsider. And rather than treating the famous Burgundian growers like Jayer like untouchable celebrities, Koji wasn’t shy about approaching them and seeking their advice. In a candid interview with Japanese media, Koji revealed that he would ask incredibly basic questions that any other young winemaker would have been too embarrassed to ask, like “How do you actually sell wine?”.
Over time, Jayer became so friendly with Koji that he would make social calls to Koji’s home. Naturally, Jayer was there in support when Koji reopened his cellar in Gevrey-Chambertin in 2003. By that time, the old vintner he had already made his last vintage, but his judgment carried exceptional weight all the same.
Interestingly, at the Gevrey party Jayer was so impressed by Lou Dumont’s Crémant de Bourgogne Blanc de Blancs – a sparkling white - that he praised it lavishly and publicly. For a house with no vineyards of its own and only two vintages of self-made wine behind it, his praise was not only an extraordinary endorsement, but a powerful source of affirmation for Koji and Jae Hwa.
Already thoroughly impressed by their potential, Jayer urged Koji to be truly himself. “Express your own identity in your wine,” he advised Koji. His words touched Koji and Jae Hwa deeply.
“Lou Dumont” which appears on every label already sounded thoroughly French, but they had no reason to hide their Japanese and Korean heritage. How else could they convey their identity within the context of great Burgundy wine?
After some thought, they landed on 天地人, tenchijin: “Heaven, Earth, Man” – a triumvirate concept with roots in East Asian cosmology, medicine and literature. It places humankind between Heaven and Earth, with human affairs constantly shaped by both and responding accordingly.
Framed tenchijin artwork (Source: Nouvelles Selections)
The idea of tenchijin suddenly feels wonderfully fitting and universal on the label of a Burgundy red. Heaven was the weather and climate; Earth was the vineyard soil. Then came the humans who grew the grapes and made the wine. For Jae Hwa, this beautifully illustrated how winemakers can make countless decisions, but always begin with the fruit and conditions offered by nature. Koji described tenchijin as a Japanese expression of the Burgundian conception of terroir – the particular conditions of a place and the work of the people making wine there. Koji asked a cousin skilled in calligraphy to brush the characters that now appear on every bottle.
The trained sommelier saw a practical advantage too. Anyone looking at the bottle immediately notices an unusual Asian element in its design; a connection which sommeliers are more than happy to explain to a French drinker.
A permanent Gevrey home
Henri Jayer’s praise gave Lou Dumont an extraordinary introduction, but Koji and Jae Hwa still had to work on the next vintage, and the one after that. At that time, they had no vineyards of their own to fall back on. Every year depended on the growers willing to sell them grapes or freshly pressed juice.
Courtyard of Lou Dumont's Gevrey-Chambertin premises (Source: Nouvelles Selections)
Many of these growers became lifelong friends of Koji; some even allow Koji to choose the harvest date and pick the fruit himself. The results began attracting attention in France. From just 900 bottles, Lou Dumont’s 2003 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru earned two stars in the Guide Hachette des Vins, whose tasters praised its concentration and freshness – another remarkable showing for the young house.
The November 2006 issue of a popular Japanese wine-focused manga Kami no Shizuku (“The Drops of God”) told the story of a French chef who was reluctant to accept his son’s Japanese fiancée. As the story goes, his attitude changed after tasting an incredible 2003 Meursault from Lou Dumont, before finding out that it was made by a Korean-Japanese couple. Interestingly, sales of this particular bottle was initially muted, with a Korean importer reportedly struggling to clear its stock. Soon after the Lou Dumont issue of The Drops of God appeared, all 1,200 bottles of the 2003 Meursault sold out. This marked a new level of notoriety for a house that until then, was mainly appreciated by French wine experts.
Lou Dumont's vaulted barrel cellar (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
By late 2007, the legendary Domaine Fourrier was in the midst of expansion and Jean-Marie Fourrier desperately needed a much larger, more modern winemaking space to operate efficiently. After he moved his winemaking operations into a modern facility, Fourrier agreed to sell his old family home, cellar space including a small backyard vineyard (La Brunelle) to Koji and Jae Hwa whom he respected as meticulous artisanal winemakers who are deeply embedded in the local culture.
This new space gave Lou Dumont a permanent place to receive grapes, make wine and work on its growing handful of small lots, beginning with the walled La Brunelle plot behind the building.
The first vines of Domaine Koji et Jae Hwa
The couple began planting La Brunelle, which was only a tenth of a hectare enclosed behind their Gevrey home. Then in 2012, in Prémeaux-Prissey, south of Nuits-Saint-Georges, the couple acquired small parcels of vines from the premier cru Les Argillières. After twelve years of making Burgundy from purchased fruit, Koji and Jae Hwa could begin following a harvest from vines they worked themselves all the way to the bottle.
Koji Nakada in his vines (Source: Nouvelles Selections)
Among their first purchases at Les Argillières were two plantings dating from 1908: one of black Pinot Noir, the other of Aligoté – a white fruit of lively acidity with apple or lemon notes. The Pinot Noir goes into the domaine’s Bourgogne Rouge Vieilles Vignes alongside fruit from a neighbouring parcel, while the Aligoté goes into the Bourgogne Aligoté “1908”. Then in 2014, the couple introduced Chardonnay in the tiny plot of Combe en Guyot.
Bottles from the couple’s own vineyards bear a white label and the name Domaine Koji et Jae Hwa.
Old gnarled vines (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
The domaine grew parcel by parcel. En Leautier in Marsannay joined it in 2016, followed by limestone-rich land for the Chardonnay of Le Désert and leased vines in Gevrey-Chambertin. Later came La Violette in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, where they work with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris.
By early 2024, new plantings had brought the Burgundian domaine to about six hectares. Its wines now range from regional bottlings to named vineyard wines.
Tending to their own vines brought Koji and Jae Hwa’s conception of tenchijin into daily practice. Jae Hwa described doing vineyard work beginning at 5 AM in the morning. The estate has been farmed organically since its beginning and gained Agriculture Biologique certification in 2016. From 2018, Koji and Jae Hwa also began using biodynamic methods, including a lunar calendar and plant preparations. On some parcels, they even use a horse and plough to reduce soil compaction and fuel use. At La Brunelle, chickens scratch and fertilise the ground, while peach and yuzu trees planted nearby provide some shade and add to the vineyard’s biodiversity. They also encourage bats to help control insect pests.
Horse ploughing the domaine vineyard (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
Domaine Koji et Jae Hwa is operated in parallel with the Maison Lou Dumont négociant business, and the couple remain closely connected to their growers. Koji favours mature vines and takes an active role in many partner vineyards when harvest time approaches. Organic and biodynamic sources are identified for particular wines, while the certified estate vineyards trace their own farming history. Across both sides of the business, Koji’s aim is to bring healthy, ripe fruit to the cellar with enough character to make heavy handling unnecessary.
Koji Nakada in the cellar
Koji has said he wants wine that is delicious to drink, with the character of its fruit still apparent beside judicious use of oak.
He spends considerable time sorting fruit, before relying on the yeasts naturally present for vinification and fermentation rather than adding a cultured yeast strain. For the reds, he increasingly leaves some whole bunches intact with stems included, the exact proportion depending on vintage conditions and the fruit. The orange-label Maison Lou Dumont reds go in at around 50% whole bunch on average, while the Domaine reds are about four-fifths.
Workers hand-sorting Pinot Noir bunches (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
Koji increasingly uses whole bunches as they can lend structure and aromatic complexity, although he carefully watches how much he extracts from the skins and stems. The reds ferment for roughly twelve to fifteen days. During fermentation, he may execute pump-overs, where wine is drawn from beneath the floating layer of grape skins and poured back over it. Koji avoids the “punch-down” method as he believes this may come at the expense of smoother and finer tannins.
As alluded, the goal is fruit that remains clear through the texture and spice the oak barrels contribute. Hence, Koji chooses fine-grained barrels with a light toast so that a long stay in wood can soften and develop a wine without too heavy extraction of tannins. Small lots may ferment in oak; larger ones tend to be fermented in tanks. The reds generally spend 16 to 18 months maturing in barrel, a substantial period even for the regional Bourgognes. New oak is used in different proportions according to the wine, alongside barrels that have already held previous vintages, and even Lou Dumont’s regional Bourgogne receives extended barrel ageing all the same.
Row of clay jars in the cellar (Source: Maison Lou Dumont)
The whites receive the same attention to texture, although their treatment varies. Some Chardonnay ferments and matures in barrel, and the house also uses malolactic fermentation in certain whites to soften the wine’s acidity. Elsewhere, Koji chooses steel or clay jars.
For most of the range, the couple use only a light sulphur addition after fermentation and before bottling, and the wines are generally neither fined nor filtered.
Wines of substance, freshness and place
The acclaim of Koji Nakada’s wines extends across more than a handful of exceptional bottles. Across the board, Lou Dumont’s reds are appreciated for their combination of fruit concentration, elegance and intensity, with the Guide Hachette praising even its regional Bourgogne for showing red fruit, rounded palate and silky tannins.
The whites have breadth as well as energy, often with registers of citrus, savoury nuts and lees. Barrel ageing gives these wines some substance, while their acidity and freshness balance the richness.
Beyond quality and pretty wine profiles, the gold standard of Burgundian winemaking is ultimately the ability to always convey a sense of place, of a particular village or vineyard. As a wkinemaker, Koji does this consistently, and demonstrably better than many other négociants. For instance, Brian Kalliel, the wine director of the 2-Michelin-stared Mélisse described Lou Dumont’s wines to always “taste like the villages they come from”. Greg Sherwood MW has praised Koji’s wines from both the maison and the domaine, singling out an orange-label Gevrey-Chambertin for a level of quality and purity that he considered unusual in wine made from purchased grapes. London wine consultant Jonathan Beagle who tasted through two components of Morey-Saint-Denis separately and could see that a parcel nearer to the main road gave a darker, bolder wine, while the higher parcel closer to a forest was more floral and subtle.
Koji in his cellar (Source: Greg Sherwood MW)
The audience for Lou Dumont’s wines now extends far beyond a fraternity of wine experts and ardent readers of The Drops of God manga. The maison today makes around 80,000 bottles across roughly 30 appellations each year, and sells in more than 30 countries, chiefly through wine merchants and restaurants, including more than 20 Michelin-starred French restaurants.
The Japanese broadcaster NHK followed Koji’s work into his vineyards and Gevrey cellar over three months and produced a documentary that brought his craft into homes across his native country. Not long after, Koji would be recognised in station shops and convenience stores across the country, even with people who weren’t familiar with Burgundy wine.
Koji Nakada and Toshio Suzuki with limited edition Ghibli bottles (Source: Nouvelles Selections)
Later came an even more unusual partner for a Burgundian winemaker: Studio Ghibli. Their first tie-in related to Ghibli’s 2016 film The Red Turtle which was produced in France. To mark the release of this film, 1,200 bottles of Lou Dumont Gevrey-Chambertin La Tortue (“The Turtle”) was released, its label designed by the film’s director Michaël Dudok de Wit.
That first bottle developed into a continuing collaboration with creatives from Studio Ghibli over the years; producer Toshio Suzuki brushed characters on the label of a limited edition Lou Dumont bottling while the legendary animator Hayao Miyazki himself personally designed the red seal of the same bottle.
Toshio Suzuki brushing label calligraphy (Source: Nouvelles Selections)
The orange and white labels now tell two parts of Koji and Jae Hwa's story. One speaks of the Burgundian growers' acceptance of Koji and Jae Hwa as part of their community; the other speaks of vines the couple farm themselves. In both, we see the idea of tenchijin - weather and soil shape what arrives at harvest, then it is on Koji and Jae Hwa to carefully pick their fruit and gently handle it in the cellar until it is ready to leave Gevrey in orange or white bottles.
To see how all of these elements come through in Lou Dumont’s wines, let's review this pair of Lou Dumont Bourgogne Rouge and Bourgogne Blanc from the same vintage.
Wine Review: Lou Dumont Bourgogne Rouge (by Koji Nakada)
Vintage 2022, 100% Pinot Noir
Tasting Notes
Appearance: Garnet
Aroma: Perfumed, aromatic and concentrated red-fruits driven, held in a clear mineral frame. It opens with vibrant tart raspberries, cranberries, pomegranate over darker cherries. Potpourri sits right behind the fruit, giving it a perfumed floral lift at all times. With time, the deeper florals unfurl – dark roses, violets along with black berries and plums, before giving wild strawberry, into slightly earthy notes of agarwood, walnuts and wet earth. Spring water minerality running beneath.
Taste: Medium bodied, richly concentrated, luscious and fresh - never getting jammy. It opens with bright red fruits – raspberries, cherries, pomegranates and Chinese bayberry. A dark plum accent beneath gradually unwinds the silky resolved tannins. Hawthorn with more dark fruits, cassis, blackberries, supported by a bright extended line of acidity keeping flavours so well-defined. It’s open and flavourful, with richness and liveliness in proportion.
Finish: Medium-plus in length, fruity, slightly herbaceous. Red cherry skins and raspberry tart-sweetness tapering off cleanly, with spice and cacao powder beginning to take the lead. There’s a bit of earthiness and fine spiced tannic grip as it settles. Touch of sarsaparilla and dried Mediterranean herbs.
My Thoughts
This is impressively harmonious. The nose is full of tart fruit and floral perfume, while the palate delivers both concentration and delicacy of top-notch Burgundian Pinot fruit. Then there’s also some darker fruit depths, silky tannins and a vibrant floral lift that hold the flavours together before spice and cacao give the finish an earthy-aromatic turn.
For a regional Bourgogne, this punches well above what the appellation might lead you to expect. The sommelier who shared this with me (Kher Meng) also offered an interesting perspective that this recalls Burgundy from before the region warmed up significantly. For all its flavour, it retains still a distinctly tart and fresh edge.
Wine Review: Lou Dumont Bourgogne Blanc (by Koji Nakada)
Vintage 2022, 100% Chardonnay
Tasting Notes
Appearance: Deep straw.
Aroma: Creamy, appley and flinty. It opens on fresh cream, green apples and just-ripe plums – kinda like a fruit yoghurt - then a soft lactic sourness along with expressed citrus, lemon peels, light white florals. Soapberry tart-sweetness, with mangosteens, langsat, passionfruit, pineapples and jackfruits. A subtle custardly sweetness of eggfruit following, along with a persistent leesy creaminess.
Taste: Compact and dense, with a crisp brightness and velvety rounded texture. Green plums and apricots leading into increasingly ripe, musky yellow fruits as jackfruit and pineapples. A touch of lemon zest dryness and tart Saturn peaches. A soft aromatic touch of cedar and vanilla beneath the fruit, with a touch of toasted almond sweetness. A light leesy character trailing into wet rocks minerality. Acidity is lively and firm, but also really plush and juicy in feel. With time, fruit gets more candied and crystalline along with a growing blanket of creaminess.
Finish: Medium in length, clean and aromatically fruity. Tapering tart sweetness of mangosteens and yellow passionfruit. The earlier cedar and vanilla tones shade into baked pastry and toast. Dry lemon zest and candied orange peels rein in the sweetness slightly, while the palate is left with savoury herbs, extra virgin olive oil aromatics and a touch of rustic animal hide. Walnut skins, wet rocks and a slight salinity.
My Thoughts
This is a precise and generous Bourgogne Blanc with a fantastically substantial mouthfeel. And just like the Bourgogne Rouge, this brings out tension between both intensity and fresh dryness. Fruit is highly defined - moving from crisp slightly-green plums and apricots towards musky tropical notes of jackfruits and passionfruit. The palate is creamy, dense and with a lovely velvety texture - plenty of richness here balanced with a clean mineral line and a saline close that keeps it in balance.
Just a lively, polished glass of Chardonnay that is very well-made and very well-judged.
@CharsiuCharlie
