At a media tasting of the 2014 vintage organised by Watson’s Wine, Domaine Leflaive’s exclusive agent in Hong Kong for 10 years, 4th generation family member Brice de La Morandière explains his vision for the venerable Burgundy family estate dated 1717 and the challenges he faces in ensuring its future succession and consistently top quality for its wines. During a visit to his former home city as CEO of a multinational company, de la Morandière also leads a frank conversation covering topics of premature oxidation, sustainable pricing versus demand and “corporate” Burgundy.
Appointed as the General Manager of Domaine Leflaive in 2015, de La Moranidière, nephew of the late Anne-Claude Leflaive, was quick to rise to his key challenges of preserving the domaine from one generation to the next, while ensuring the quality of the wines lived up to market expectations. Domaine Leflaive was a pioneer in biodynamics in Burgundy, with trials starting as early as 1990. One of De La Morandière’s first initiatives was to invite Pierre Vincent, formerly of Domaine de La Vougeraie, a young and talented winemaker, committed to biodynamics, to join the team. He further initiated the project to renovate the cellar to extend and to improve insulation. De La Morandière’s other challenge was to tackle the issue of premature oxidation in bottled wines. Extensive improvement to the soil helped restore the health of vines, enabling them to be more resistant to climatic hazards within the framework of biodynamics. In the winery, apart from longer and more gentle pressing to incorporate more oxygen into the juice before fermentation, they also aim to retain more “bourbes” (gross lees after pressing) which have strong antioxidant qualities. To minimise oxygenation during vinification, new and more effective pumps have been installed. But de La Morandière’s ultimate innovation to tackle the issue head-on was to change all closures from natural cork to Diam in order to eliminate or minimise bottle variation. The domaine now uses Diam 10 for Bourgogne and Village level wines, and Diam 30 for all Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines.
He cautioned that certain care had to be taken when preparing wines bottled with Diam. For example, all the wines tasted were double-decanted 3 hours before the tasting, to aerate the wines.
The media tasting showcased 5 wines from the 2014 vintage: starting with Bourgogne, Puligny-Montrachet village, followed by two premier cru wines, Clavoillon and Les Pucelles, and finishing with a Grand Cru, Bâtard Montrachet. 2014 vintage was the first vintage to be closed with Diam closures and the bright acidity and mineral character in all the wines was testament to the efficacy of the closures as well as the outstanding quality of the vintage.
De La Morandière said that the 2014 vintage whites were drinking so well now that he was concerned that buyers would not wish to take the risk of holding back some for cellaring.
The wines from such an illustrious domaine do come at prices that many may find unattainable. De La Morandière accepted that “scarcity” was a factor in ensuring that the domaine’s wines were less than accessible to most. However, he quickly pointed out that the pleasure in wine could not be equated to pricing. Nevertheless, “I don’t want to make wines for billionaires”, he retorted. He sympathized that the Leflaive wines were not for everybody given the prices but equally, the premium wines were not meant for every occasion. He encouraged wine lovers to start with their Bourgogne which retails at around EUR 45 a bottle (ie one-tenth of the retail price of the domaine's Bâtard Montrachet) but certainly delivers a taste of what the domaine offers, even at this entry level. With 24 hectares in Puligny, the Leflaive Bourgogne accounts for 4.3 ha, with a similar area dedicated to Puligny-Montrachet village. 10.8 ha is for the Premiers Crus and 4.8 ha for the Grands Crus. To prove that Chardonnay expresses itself in places other than Puligny, the domaine also has 20 ha of vineyards in the Mâconnais since 2004, producing the two appellations of Mâcon-Verzé and Pouilly-Fuissé in the philosophy of Domaine Leflaive. De La Morandière jokingly said that their Mâconnais wines had to be the cheapest fine wines of the world.
De La Morandière is the only family member currently living in Puligny. Recent purchases of Burgundian domaines by large corporates and entrepreneurs have highlighted the fragility of family succession in this historic French winemaking region. He wishes to encourage the family’s next generation members to join the business, but he retains a practical outlook about the future of Burgundian domaines.
When asked if he would expand to other winemaking regions in France or beyond, his comment was “One step at a time.”
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