Louis Boillot et Fils

Appellation: Côte d'Or & Beaujolais

Proprietor: Louis Boillot & Clément Boillot

Year Founded: 2003

Size: 11 hectares

7 hectares across the Côte d'Or
4 hectares in Beaujolais

Farming Practice: Organic

Family Matters

After bringing two esteemed heritages under one roof, Louis Boillot and Ghislaine Barthold have nurtured the only thing more important than old vines on esteemed terroir: a son who’s every bit as visionary as they’ve been.

For the scion of two families whose unified holdings in Burgundy comprise one of the most envied portfolios in the Cote-d’Or, Clément Boillot told us to meet him at a surprising place: the 16th-century windmill that marks one’s arrival in Moulin-à-Vent. It’s an iconic landmark, no doubt. But the standard-bearer of an estate whose vineyards range from Volnay and Pommard up through Chambolle-Musigny and Gevrey-Chambertin wanted to show off … four hectares in Beaujolais?

That’s right. And truth be told, we weren’t really surprised. The cool and collected torchbearer of two blueblood Burgundian domaines—six feet and five inches of quiet confidence and intense listening power—shares his parents’ exquisite instinct for old vines in overachieving terroir, and that’s what they identified here in the early 2010s. Louis Boillot et Fils’ 11 parcels in Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie are reminiscent of their vaunted plots an hour-and-a-half to the north: vines pushing 70 and 80 years old deeply rooted in a wide spectrum of granitic soils (which of course present different possibilities than the limestone, marl, and stony clay they farm in the Cote-d’Or—where some vines predate the First World War).

The first thing to know about Louis Boillot et Fils is that its own roots reach back way further than the domaine’s emergence in 2002. That’s when Louis took over half his father Lucien’s estate, which had been split between him and his brother Pierre. But rather than just coast on his patrimony—prime sites in Volnay and Gevrey patiently assembled by four generations of his forebears—Louis left the family operation soon thereafter to combine forces with his wife Ghislaine Barthod, a brilliant vigneron who added still more old vines to the mix, from her family’s heritage in Chambolle-Musigny. Louis took over viticulture—the meticulous pruner is renowned as a vine whisperer—and they built a deep, cold cave in Chambolle where they could make wine side-by-side.

That’s the legacy—and prowess—their son Clément is now building on. He has taken up his parents’ quest for purity and transparency, and charged it with an open-minded dynamism that marks Boillot’s old-school Pinots no less than their new-school Gamays.

It would take a short book to do justice to the astonishing array of wines being patiently crafted in that chilly Chambolle cellar. There are more than two dozen Burgundy cuvées, of which 16 are Premier Cru—and many of those frequently rival Grand Cru bottlings that hail from neighboring plots. The Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Cherbaudes, for instance, comes from a .17-hectare parcel planted 100 years ago just below Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru. By a similar token, Boillot’s village-level Gevrey-Chambertin Les Evocelles comes from a sheer, stony limestone slope on a hill bordering two 1er Cru vineyards, Les Goulots and Les Champeaux—a cold site whose wines show an impressively firm minerality. Over and over, this is the Boillot family’s pattern: incredible parcels just meters away from even more famous (and prohibitively expensive) ones, filled with ancient vines that frequently outshine those gold-plated neighbors.

The house style has long achieved sensuality through nuance, subtlety, and precision, and Clément has carried that forward by means of gentle extractions even when maceration times are long. He emphasizes freshness and is willing to experiment in pursuit of it. Thus even with the benefit of decades of winemaking experience and protocols laid out by his parents, he’s willing to adapt, as with the introduction of partial stainless steel maturation in everything up to village-level reds. That attitude is partly down to youthful dynamism, and partly to the tremendous support structure his parents have bequeathed him.

But Clément is no more content to rest on his laurels than his parents were—as his ambitions in Beaujolais attest. Vinifying their Gamay grapes à la Bourguignonne, with only limited inclusion of whole clusters, Boillot et Fils is crafting Beaujolais cuvées whose aromatic complexities spring forth from tightly coiled structures. These wines do need a little bit of time to unwind—but like their northern and more glamorous cousins, Les Moulins possess serious aging potential. One of their most striking sites, which is among the coolest in the appellation, is the steep hillside of Champ de Cour. Its echalas-trained vines stand upright on decomposed granite and produce a smoky, high-toned, and complex nose redolent of savory spice and dark berries. This mid-weight, racy Moulin-à-Vent continues to unfold in the glass and finishes a mile long. It’s an amazing wine. But then so is Les Roucheaux, from whose 70-year-old vines in pink sand over blue granite the Boillots coax an evocation of brambly fruit flecked with cocoa and wisps of a sweet-smelling bonfire; and the dense, crunchy Les Brussellions; and the classy, finely polished tannins of Aux Caves. With all the energy and excitement going on here, it’s no wonder at all that Clément picked Moulin-à-Vent’s namesake windmill as our starting point.

Just the same, there’s no losing the significance that Chambolle holds for Louis Boillot et Fils—both as the site of vinification and the family’s spiritual center. And we won’t soon forget the startling sight we witnessed there after driving back up from Moulin-à-Vent.

Rolling into the village for a late lunch with Clément, we couldn’t help noticing a quite unexpected addition to Chambolle’s quintessential paysan chic: a freshly road-killed pigeon lying in the middle of the street. Were we the first witnesses? What were we supposed to do? We were gloveless outsiders armed with nothing more than the address of a charming restaurant. It would hardly do to greet the maître d’ bearing avian remains. So we hurried through the door, only to find ourselves the only ones inside. The owner guided us to a table, but after a few minutes it felt funny to just sit inside waiting. So we strolled back out—just in time to see Clément heading up the street in our direction. In one swift motion, as smoothly as if it had been choreographed, he stooped down in mid-stride, bare-handed the bird carcass, and yelled to a passing neighbor with a smile, “Qui veut du pigeon à midi?!”

A strangely amusing spectacle, to be sure—and one that teed up some belly laughs over lunch after Clément disposed of the unlucky bird. Yet it also seemed to encapsulate something indispensable about the way Clément is taking up the reins to advance and extend the legacy his parents have created here: with fearless confidence, no trace of pretension, and entirely in stride.

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Wines:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From middle-aged vines in an amphitheater-shaped lieu

Soil: Sandy, poor topsoils over red-pink granite

Elevation: 980 feet

Exposure: South

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during maceration (avoiding too many punch-downs) before completing fermentation after about three weeks.

Maturation: Up to 12 months in 500-liter and 228-liter barrels with a small portion in new oak

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From only the old vines of several of the estate’s lieux-dits (vineyard selection changes depending on the vintage)

Soil: Sandy and granitic

Elevation: 650-950 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in a combination of stainless and lightly used 500- and 228-liter barrels with a small portion of new oak

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From 70-year-old vines on the western border of the appellation

Soil: Sand and silt over granite

Elevation: 920 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: On the western limit of the appellation below Le Moulin à Vent

Soil: Granitic sand with quartz over deep granite bedrock

Elevation: 820 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From 70-year-old vines in La Rochelle which is on the northwestern end Moulin-à-Vent just above Aux Caves

Soil: Sandy topsoils consisting of decomposed granite over deep granite

Elevation: South

Exposure: 925 feet

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From a foothill on the eastern side of the appellation

Soil: Alluvial, silty soils consisting of pebbles and grey and white sand

Elevation: 670 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From a 1.2-hectare parcel of 70-year-old vines in the lieu of Les Roucheaux in the village of Romanèche-Thorins

Soil: Pink sand over blue granite

Elevation: 730 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum) in the fermentation, pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Gamay

Vineyard Area: From old vines in Plantier de Favre which is in middle of Moulin-à-Vent

Soil: Sandy topsoils over granite of varying depths

Elevation: 750 feet

Exposure: Southeast

Vinification: Manually harvested with some whole-cluster inclusion (15% maximum), pump-overs during a three-week maceration period (avoiding too many punch-downs)

Maturation: Up to 12 months in lightly used 500 and 228-liters barrels with a small portion of new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From old vines in Gevrey-Chambertin and Brochon

Soil: Clay-limestone

Vinification: Manually harvested and destemmed before a cold soak of several days. Pump-overs and punch-downs during maceration. After about three weeks, the wine is moved to barrels where malolactic fermentation occurs.

Maturation: 12 months in a combination of barrel (two-thirds) and stainless (one-third). Barrels are then racked to stainless steel and the wine spends its last 6 months there until bottling (without fining or filtration).

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From mid-slope vines in Brochon lieu of "Vignois"

Soil: Shallow limestone-based clay soils

Exposure: Southeast

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From .11 hectare of vines mostly from the village level portion of Beaux Bruns and the remainder from Derrière le Four and Les Chardannes — vines were planted in the 1980s.

Soil: Deep clay-limestone soils

Exposure: South-East

Vinification: Manually harvested and destemmed before a cold soak of several days. Pump-overs and punch-downs during maceration. After about three weeks, once fermentation is complete, the wine is moved to barrels where malolactic fermentation occurs. The wine is racked once after malolactic and again before it is bottled without fining or filtration.

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From 85-year-old vines in the lieu-dit of Les Herbues near the middle of Fixin

Soil: Limestone and marl mixtures

Maturation: Up to 12 months in barrels and up to 10% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From old vines in eight different lieux-dits totaling 1.8 hectares. They are Le Fourneau, Jouise, Creux Brouillard, Croix des Champs, Es Murrots, Les Crais, Combe du Lavaut, Les Lavaux, Clos Prieurs-Bas and Vignes Belles.

Soil: Clay-limestone mixtures

Elevation: 250-300 meters

Exposure: East-Southeast

Vinification: Manual harvest and destemmed before a cold soak of several days. Pump-overs and punch-downs during maceration. After about three weeks, the wine is moved to barrels where malolactic fermentation occurs.

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: Evocelles is a steep vineyard on Gevrey’s north-easternmost limit at the top of the hill, neighboring 1er Cru Les Goulots, 1er Cru Les Champeaux and 1er Cru Combe aux Moines. Most of Boillot's holding is situated on the side of Brochon with a smaller portion on the side of Gevrey.

Soil: Clay-limestone and full of stones (same terroir as neighboring 1er Crus)

Elevation: 350 feet

Exposure: East

Maturation: Up to 12 months in barrels and up to 20% new oak

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .19 ha parcel of 45+-year old vines in Les Champonenets

Soil: Stony clay soils of medium density

Elevation: 290 meters

Exposure: Northeast

Maturation: Up to 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .17-hectare parcel in Cherbaudes planted over 100 years ago with some replacements — it sits just below Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru.

Soil: Stony red clay

Elevation: 270 meters

Exposure: Southeast

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .27-hectare parcel in Les Prûliers just south of the village of Nuits-St.-Georges — vines were planted in 1911.

Soil: Hard limestone rock on clay soil

Elevation: 260 meters

Exposure: East

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a small parcel in the village portion of Beaune Les Épenottes (at the border of Pommard) — vines were planted in 1946

Soil: Clay-limestone marl

Exposure: Southeast

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .17-hectare parcel in Les Croix Noires on the southern end of Pommard bordering Volnay (the smallest 1er Cru of the appellation) — vines were planted in 1928.

Soil: Deep and rich clay soils with brown limestone rock

Exposure: East

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .29-hectare parcel in Les Frémiers on the southern end Pommard at the border of Volnay — vines were planted in 1967.

Soil: Deep clay soils with large limestone rocks all over

Exposure: Southeast

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From 70-year-old vines in Les Grand Poisots bordering Pommard

Soil: Fine clay with limestone

Exposure: Southeast

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .54-hectare site is Les Angles, situated just east of Volnay — vines are mostly 45 years old with a small portion of 85-year old vines.

Soil: Brown clay-limestone

Elevation: 250 to 300 meters

Exposure: Southeast

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Marketing Materials:

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From a .18-hectare parcel in Les Brouillards which is a gently sloped site on the border of Pommard to the northeast of Volnay (50 meters from Les Angles)— vines were planted in 1984.

Soil: Densely packed clay soils with fractured limestone rock piercing the surface

Exposure: East

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak

Red

Varietal/Blend: Pinot Noir

Vineyard Area: From .18-hectare parcel in Les Caillerets of 45-year-old vines — it's a gently sloping site on the southern end of Volnay

Soil: Densely packed, red-brown clay consisting of limestone rocks and stones of various sizes that pierce the surface

Elevation: 275 meters

Exposure: East

Maturation: 12 months in barrels and up to 30% new oak