More about Lucie et Auguste Lignier

This small Morey-Saint-Denis domaine was born of loss and stubbornness. When Romain Lignier, the gifted elder son of Hubert Lignier, died in 2004 at just 34, his widow Kellen, an American from Albuquerque who had come to Burgundy in the late 1990s, chose to carry on making the wine herself, against the wishes of parts of the family.

Kellen had worked the vines alongside Romain, and after his death she trained at the wine schools in Beaune and did a stage at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. From the 2006 vintage she renamed the estate for the couple's two children, Lucie and Auguste. The holdings, about eight hectares worked from the old village cooperative building in Morey, covered a remarkable spread for their size: Morey-Saint-Denis premiers crus such as Les Chaffots and an old-vine Cuvée Romain Lignier, Chambolle-Musigny Les Baudes, Gevrey-Chambertin Aux Combottes, and tiny amounts of the grands crus Clos de la Roche and Charmes-Chambertin.

The winemaking followed the Lignier tradition: destemmed fruit, a cool pre-fermentation soak, native yeasts in open cement vats with punch-downs by hand, a share of new oak that rose with the appellation, long barrel ageing, and no fining or filtration. Expect classic, perfumed Côte de Nuits Pinot Noir, and mature bottles that show the grace of the old-vine sites they came from.