Domaine Denis Berthaut-Gerbet

Amélie Berthaut took over the family domaine located in the village of Fixin in 2013. 2013 was also the first year she was fully responsible entire range, although she participated in the making some of the 2012s (the 2012 Gevrey Chambertin 1er cru Lavaut st Jacques was the first wine solely made by her). Amélie belongs to the group of young generation talented wine makers taking over more and more domaines in Burgundy over the last decade. These young people combine passion, skills and knowledge acquired in formal wine studies, work under other wine makers and travel to other wine growing regions around the world – with historical family owned vineyards. Once these domains are in their hands, the results are overwhelming.

Amélie studied in the University together and is a close friend with few of Burgundy’s top doamaines young wine makers, among them Mathilde Grivot from Domaine Grivot and Charles Van Canneyt from Domaine Hudelot-Noellat. These kinds of relationships, which were not common in older times in Burgundy, are part of the trend of increasing sharing of experience and knowledge through tasting together and openly sharing of information between the domaines, which result in better and better consistency and quality of the wines.

Amélie’s believes that great wines are being made in the vineyards first, thus great amount of hard work is invested in the vineyards year around. In fact, Amélie takes this task to the extreme, and using her own words, for example the tiny parcel of Echezeaux is being taken care by “the only person that could meet her exacting standards – which is herself !”.

The vineyards are cultivated in a natural way, without the use of herbicides. All grapes arriving to the domaine go through careful sorting making sure nothing then perfect grapes will get into the fermenting vats. Amélie avoids the old days habit of using pump to transfer the destemmed grapes into the vats, and now everything is done gently by gravitation. A lot of resources are being invested in new equipment, and a new vibrating sorting table will be available as from the next vintage, and there are plans to replace the existing concrete vats by stainless steel ones over the next couple of years.

The family domaine consists of 13 hectares under vine which include métayage contracts and additional holdings from her mother’s side which although being made by the same team are labeled “Berthaut-Gerbet” and include one of the finest 1er cru vineyards in Vosne-Romanee: Les Petits Monts.

Amélie’s wines are made in a refined, elgant and terroir driven manner.