The Leroy name may not be as conspicuous as that of Domaine de la Romanee Conti's (which to a great extent isn't their fault, but instead lies with those Instagram showoffs), and yet it's one that is no less of Burgundian royalty.

Even just taking a look at the label, you'll simply find a very elegant black cursive text on paper white label - nothing much in the way of imagery, stylized designs nor secondary colours - with just the "Leroy" name left to the left most corner, almost as if it were any sort of admission that the focus should resolutely remain on text indicating the contents of the bottle rather than who made it. And that's by no accident, for Madam Lalou Bize-Leroy's deep, if often solitary, reverence for the vine, and really that of greater forces beyond the mere efforts of the vigneron, reigns supreme where Leroy's works are concerned. 

So who is Leroy?

It all starts with one François Leroy. In 1868, François was already making his own wines at the time at the Auxey-Duresses commune, and yet like many others in the incredibly diverse and fragmented region of Burgundy, he needed a steady stream of wines to supply to his clients, out of which borne Maison Leroy, a negociant business. This was far from uncommon at the time, with many winemakers typically selling their wines to a cooperative or a negociant, which took their unlabelled wines off their hands and on the other side of the picture, gave the collectively sourced wines a uniform and a single identity. It was simply far too risky and uncertain for winemakers to have to handle all that sales and marketing in those days. And so François would procure wines from other winemakers, and together with his wines, label them under the name Maison Leroy.

Over two successive generations of Leroy's, the negociant business would slowly grow (even getting themselves into Cognacs and such). Yet it was really third-generation Henri Leroy where everything changed. Henri was a great vigneron with a deep intuition and understanding of Burgundy. He would join the family business in 1919, and inarguably laid the foundations for two of Burgundy's greatest names - his own Leroy, and that of Domaine de la Romanee Conti (or DRC).

The iconic cross that marks the DRC.

The Burgundian Royalty Crossover, Or How Leroy Became Part Of Domaine de la Romanee Conti

Now how did this happen? It was the 1940's and like many of France's vineyards, Burgundy too was reeling from the devastation of phylloxera (a pest that attacked grape vines, eventually sweeping most of Europe). And if that wasn't bad enough, the punches kept on coming - two World Wars, sandwiching an American Great Depression which killed France's wine industry's biggest market. Even the now revered Domaine de la Romanee Conti was not spared. And so Henri was informed by his close friend Edmond Gaudin de Villaine that the Domaine de la Romanee Conti was up for sale - in fact, it was de Villaine's wife and brother-in-law, the Chambon's, who had inherited the estate and was now looking for a buyer. And it's crazy to think about today (although the state of the vineyards then were vastly less spectacular), but the Domaine had already been up for sale at the Notary's office in Paris for a good number of years, with potential buyers looking like vultures, waiting for the Domaine to get even cheaper before snapping it up!

Henri was nevertheless convinced that this was a big mistake, and had desperately tried to convince the Chambon's to keep their Domaine and instead rehabilitate it. This might have worked on his good friend de Villaine and his wife, Marie-Dominique Chambon, however, her brother, Jacques Chambon, had still wanted out. Henri of course felt compelled to disallow the Domaine from finding itself in the wrong hands, and so decided to take the Domaine into his own.

The next 40 years would see Henri devote himself tirelessly to resuscitating this estate that he now owned half of. Having lived up to the promise he made to de Villaine, "Don’t sell your shares, you will see, we will make this a jewel," Henri would pass away in 1980, with Domaine de la Romanee Conti back and greater than ever.

Along Henri's journey to raise high again the flag of the DRC, he would be joined by his daughters Marcelle (better known as Lalou) and Pauline. And so on Henri's passing, Lalou and Pauline would each receive a quarter of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, which put them alongside the half that remained with the de Villaine's. Lalou in particular would also go on to helm the family's historic negociant business, Maison Leroy.

The Life And Times Of Lalou Bize-Leroy

Lalou herself would go on to carve out a highly esteemed name for herself as a vigneron and winemaker. For Lalou, quality was everything, and it was completely clear to her that in order to produce wines of the greatest quality, she had to serve as a custodian to the vines and respect nature's workings. Although the practice may remain rather contentious, Lalou was a huge advocate for biodynamic farming practices. Now into her 90's, Lalou has become known for being highly selective, only producing wines when they meet her incredibly high standards, no matter how long they have to be aged or how much effort ought to go into producing them, and the results have been undeniable - it is thanks to her that Leroy's wines compete with only the likes of DRC.

Whilst having not much in the way of a familiar background in producing wines - the Leroy family was much more focused then on serving as a negociant - Lalou's eventual ability to produce incredible wines is perhaps not all that surprising considering her upbringing.

By the age of 23, she had already joined the family's negociant business and had begun actively visiting producers across Burgundy, getting to know intimately the in's and out's of the region's vastly diverse terroirs. Her first vintage purchased was that of 1955, and along the way she's not only fought against multi-year contracts where wines are automatically purchased regardless of quality, but had also began eschewing the act of purchasing on a social basis, yet if quality is present, Lalou has been known to pay a premium for it - this began cementing her reputation as the "Quality Leroy", distinguishing Maison Leroy as being only about the best. She's outlined her criteria as being that of a wine identity and ability to be representative of its terroir, for her Musigny must fit Musigny, whilst Chambertin should not remind one of Pommard, nor should Pommard resemble Volnay. Till this day, Lalou continues to sample hundreds of wines blind, brought to her through brokers, with the results of her decision to purchase never made known to the vigneron.

“I think it’s intuition more than experience. I have a lot of intuition. If I know a blind wine it’s by intuition rather than knowledge. And I have a good wine memory.”

Yet it wasn't a straightforward path for Madame Lalou, who is often called the Queen of Burgundy. Her father, Henri, had initially passed the torch of Domaine de la Romanee Conti to her, appointing her co-gerant (a French styled co-directorship) of the legendary estate, alongside her fellow co-gerant Aubert de Villaine, grandson of Edmond Gaudin de Villaine (Henri Leroy's great friend). With strong views as hers, it's not surprising that she did not see eye to eye with DRC's winemakers, even as her efforts were the result of a strong conviction that biodynamics would aid the quality of the wines produced.

Who Could See It Coming?

Nevertheless it all came to a head when Lalou would find herself dismissed from the estate as a result of a dispute in the way DRC's wines were distributed. Because DRC was shared by two families, the de Villaine's and the Leroy's, distribution of these highly sought after wines were also divided along the lines of the de Villaine's handling the US and UK markets (together 60% of sales), whilst the Leroy's would get everywhere else - including Japan. 

Interestingly, into the late 80's, Japan was at the height of its economic boom, and the Japanese market had developed a very strong taste for fine wines, and thus were willing to pay top dollar for the best bottles. As DRC oversaw several vineyards, with the namesake Romanee Conti being the most highly prized, it was thus under the Leroy's distribution ownership in Japan that each case of DRC wines were assembled as such - 1 Romanee Conti DRC wine, and a random assemblage of 11 non-Romanee Conti DRC wines to go with it (which could be of the Richebourg, Echezeaux, La Tache, St Vivant or Montrachet estates - a practice known as tying bottles). And so each case was alittle bit of a blind box in today's terms - you were guaranteed one bottle of Romanee Conti DRC and that was it. What would follow was perhaps quite unexpected - as the Japanese clients were willing to pay insurmountable sums for just that one single Romanee Conti DRC, the local Japanese distributors would thus make a killing getting them that one bottle and would dispense with the other 11 non-Romanee Conti DRC's.

As a result, Japan was now causing a worldwide glut in non-Romanee Conti DRC's, which were now sold for massive discounts, which would have the knock-on effect on distributors in the US who were now being shown up in terms of prices, theirs being far more expensive than those coming out of Japan. As a sidenote, it's worth also including that the European distributors had a hand in this as well, having catered to the Japanese markets' seemingly ceaseless demand for higher allocations, which led to the repackaging of these mixed cases that were shipped off to Japan. This obviously rocked the boat over at the Domaine, and Lalou had found herself blamed for the situation. Whilst she kept her quarter ownership of the Domaine, she would be replaced by her nephew (although today, Lalou's daughter Perrine Fenal is the co-gerant of the Domaine, representing the Leroy side of the ownership).

Lalou's daughter Perrine Fenal, with Aubert de Villaine.

The Freedom To Express Oneself Starts At Domaine Leroy

Yet somehow the whole incident might be viewed positively in hindsight. No longer helming the DRC (as of 1992), Lalou was free to now fully express herself through her own wines, wines of her own name. Lalou would now fully concentrate her efforts on the newly created Domaine Leroy, which would hold the family's vineyards and whose name will represent estate grown and produced wine, whilst the Maison Leroy would remain a negociant business, representing wines sourced from external producers. The creation of a Domaine was also supported by momentous shift in the wine trade that was fast happening in Burgundy and really around the world - increasingly growers and producers were convinced that selling their own wines under their own name was no longer as risky as before, and was in fact proving to become quite lucrative. And thus the ability to purchase high quality wines for the negociant business was becoming increasingly difficult. And just as well, an incredible vineyard had come up for sale, very much feeling like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The famed Charles Noëllat estate in Vosne-Romanee had come up for sale, and subsequently so were the estates at Gevrey-Chambertin from Philippe-Remy. And so together with the long time vineyard holdings of the Leroy family, these would all now form Domaine Leroy. The Domaine would grow to a full 21 hectares across some of the most prized parcels of Burgundy, from Chambolle-Musigny to Pommard, across Volnay, and all the way to Vosne-Romanee, Chassagne-Montrachet, Meursault and Santenay. This was in part made possible through the investment from one of Japan's most well-known departmental store, Takashimaya, which as a result till today owns a third of the Leroy business (alongside Lalou and the family of her late sister Pauline, both of whom own a third of the business as well), and is thus the exclusive importer of Leroy wines in Japan.

“There is no winemaking and no winemaker in Burgundy! We are guardians. We watch, we observe, we make some decisions but it is the grapes that come first - they guide us. Our job is to look, observe and try to understand."

Madame Lalou Bize-Leroy

In her Domaine, Lalou would pursue heavily the principles of biodynamic farming. She significantly lowered yields to levels that remain thought to be impossible to sustain economically - Leroy's average yield since 1988 is said to stand at 1.1 tons per acre which evens out to somewhere between 1,700 t0 3,750 cases per year, one-third that of most domaines. Yet she remains resolute that this is necessary to produce wines of great concentration. “A wine from a vine that’s yielded 40 hectoliters per hectare will not have the natural concentration of a wine that comes from a vine that gave 9, 10, 12 or 15 hectoliters. Voilà!” Lalou says. The more immediately biodynamic synonymous practices of avoiding herbicides and fungicides at all cost, along with natural bottling without fining or filtration, are also standard for Leroy.

These might seem like standard practice today, even Domaine de la Romanee Conti is today biodynamic despite its earlier hesitation, yet in the 80's and 90's, this was seen as being backward or a matter of pure superstition. Chemicals were all the rage then and seen as a positive outcome of modern invention. Yet what started out as an intuitive desire for a greater respect for nature which was what initially led Lalou to organic principles, would convert to biodynamics when her husband had shown her a newspaper article that detailed the efforts of Nicolas Joly's biodynamics-led work in his Coulée de Serrant vineyard in Savennières.

No Comprises Makes For A Legendary Reputation

Madame Lalou's conviction would nevertheless be tested soon after she had gotten her start. 1993 was an incredibly difficult year for Burgundy as a wet spring had led to the widespread emergence of mildew. Most growers had therefore turned to the heavy usage of fungicides in order to save their harvest - Lalou had instructed otherwise. She refused to allow for any chemicals in her vineyards, which resulted in a devastating harvest for Domaine Leroy. Perhaps more significantly, it led to the resignation of her chief winemaker Andre Porcheret, who disagreed on her refusal to use fungicides. Salvaging what fruit remained, Lalou pressed on, with the belief that she might have lost the harvest but saved her vines. Yet, if the ratings of wine critics are anything to go by, Lalou had made the right call - 2 years later when the wines were ready to be released, they had achieved broad critical acclaim, with most of her wines rated upwards of 95 points. “It was a year that brought us a lot of sadness but 1993 was a turning point for us. We did well, because the vines didn’t die. They recovered and they are beautiful now.” says Lalou.

Her vineyard work extends beyond the absence of chemicals. She is often said to treat each vine as if it were their own individual being, and thus she evaluates each vine and what it requires on its own. Where it comes to replanting, individual vines are selected for replacement, which is done through massal selection using healthy vines from nearby. All work in the vineyard is of course done by hand, and over the years she's stopped hedging the vines, and has trained them higher than in conventional pruning, with their shoot tips curled around the top wire, giving her vines a very distinctive appearance.

“Other Burgundy vignerons think I’m crazy,... I’ve always been isolated from the rest of them. With the Bordelais, yes. They are kinder to me, they don’t think I’m crazy. They’re a lot more open. But in Burgundy, no. I’m the woman to beat down. It doesn’t matter. We continue our journey peacefully, with a lot of resistance. I think I work for Burgundy. One day or another, everything will change.”

During the harvest, fruit is hand harvested in small baskets and refrigerated during transport, after which they are sorted before being fermented in large wooden barrels. She leaves the stalks in to impart more tannins, and so there is no de-stemming or crushing, in order to avoid oxidation at such an early phase, also allowing for native yeasts to be preserved. Fermentation is slow and long, with the reds taking on a long maceration period. The juice is first pressed off the skins and then moved via gravity to the first level of her cellar where they'll stay until malolactic fermentation is completed. After which the juice is drained off the lees and moved to the second floor where it is aged fully in new oak barrels, again typically longer than is done in practice, before it is finally bottled. Understanding her process makes clear that her wines are very much designed for long ageing, giving them much longevity.

Something that has added to the mystique of Leroy's wines (and therefore its desirability) is also just how little of it makes it to market. With production already limited, and the wines being aged at length before release, Leroy's releases have become big events. Whilst some of that comes down to her desire for market responsiveness, working closely with her importers, it's also much to do with her only wanting to present her wines when she truly feels they are ready. “I sell just enough so that we can keep going,” says Madame Lalou, and consequently what little makes it out of her cellars tends to easily match the high prices she places on them. As much of her releases come from her dipping into her old stock, it's often speculated and fantasised as to just how much legendary wines continue to reside in the Leroy cellars at Auxey-Duresses.

“I’m happy to be on the right path, but the path is still very long,... We’ve only done a little bit of it. But the most important is to continue. To continue the path. We have not found how to do better yet. That’s my path, to do better. For the vines, it’s the same. We still have everything to find.”

And so today, having walked through the incredible Age of Leroy, we'll taste perhaps the most ubiquitous (and some say classic) of Leroy's wines - the Maison Leroy Bourgogne Blanc. This is a Chardonnay (100%) from the 2017 vintage, aged in neutral French oak, produced from declassified parcels in Auxey-Duresses and Puligny-Montrachet.

Let's go!

Wine Review: Maison Leroy 2017 Bourgogne Blanc

Tasting Notes

Colour: Light Gold; Cider

Aroma: It opens fresh and rustic, giving all these evocative countryside vibes. The aromas are filled in with gentle notes of straw, freshly harvested pears and quince, with just a subtle muskiness of animal hide. A little bit of kombucha for that funky tartness. It has a richness and roundedness to it, aromatic yet without being overtly sweet - in fact, the grains of oak already reveal themselves here. It's heady with this plush richness and depth, yet almost lightly dry.

Taste: Medoum-bodied here, just as it was of the aromas, it persists in being rounded and very plush. It's giving more of those quince and gooseberry jams, a light tartness to it, yet it also feels fuller and almost a little bit syrupy in its textures, whilst still conveying a sense of being firm and supple. It's a contrasting mix of subtle sweetness and sourness, with some jackfruits joining the fold as well. Harmonious and seamless, it feels as if it's woven into a singular flavour that's then expressed broadly with both control and elegance.  

Finish: Alittle bit more of that quince and gooseberry jams and some sourness from the jackfruit. This is wrapped around by the rustic notes of hay and farmhouse, here even more fresh and slightly brighter now. A touch of salinity and mineral spring water comes through with some green gooseberries lingering on the finish. It's firm and rich into the finish, the tannins present and supportive without strain, giving it a resolute and clean (yet not overtly dry) finish.

My Thoughts

This was a very understatedly impressive Bourgogne Blanc expression from Maison Leroy, and what I mean by that is that on parsing, it comes off as a more concentrated, fuller and richer Chardonnay, which might point in the direction of the New World, yet it doesn't have that ripeness for that, and at the same time feels very deliberate in how the wine presents itself, which is where it would start to pique one's curiosity as to what it truly is. When you scratch the surface just a little, you'd start to find that this concentration isn't the result of mere ripeness - which is why "ripe" would be inaccurate - but really the work of naturally concentrating the fruit rather than simply forcing more in, and that's where the elegance comes in, where here you feel more so the expressiveness of the vine's work, it's alittle more green, alittle more of that fresh yet gentle acidity, and also the structure afforded by the greater tannins. 

The combined outcome of all of that is a Chardonnay that feels incredibly fresh and pure, almost naturalistic in its sensibilities, as well as demonstrating so much poise and control in how it expresses itself, which I should add it does so seamlessly and coherently. It focuses on these yellow and green fruits which is woven together as one and then allowed to blossom out in texture and form with no loss of its concentration, purity or integrity. This is also made possible with a body that's firm, rich and supple, also rounded, yet never ripe, with the tannins reinforcing its linearity but never causing a strain or any sense of grippy-ness nor bitterness. Safe to say this is not one of those high toned, thin and musky Chardonnay's, if anything the concentration and roundedness on this should alert you that this is something else altogether, yet it is the avoidance of ripeness that really brings you down the rabbithole.

And in that sense, what started off as simply a tasty and supple, rounded Chardonnay, intrigues you to peel under its surface and with some thoughtfulness, its true elegance and the mastery of its maker is revealed.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot