In the vineyard with Anne-Claude Leflaive

Anne-Claude Leflaive below the Chevaliers-MontrachetPuligny-Montrachet, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy
We had the chance to meet Anne-Claude Leflaive and go see the vineyard with her. Anne-Claude Leflaive heads one of the most respected wineries in Burgundy. Her biodynamic approach that she implemented in the vineyard for quite a number of years now with the help of Philippe Bourguignon, coupled with the purity of her wines helped give biodynamic farming visibility and respect. She began working on biodynamie in 1990. At the time in the region, there were few people following this organic-farming method. In Beaune, there was Jean-Claude Rateau, Didier Montchauvet and Thierry Guyot in Saint Romain who were the pioneers, having begun to work this way in 1986. She says that she owes them a lot because they were examples. Otherwise on Puligny there was nobody and when she started, she was looked upon strangely by the vignerons around. Now, things have changed and people are more open to this farming discipline, some of the vignerons around even come to the biodynamie wine school that she and other same-minded vignerons have opened.
As soon as she arrived at the winery that day, she led us to the vineyards for a short interview there. There had been rain and cloudy skies earlier in the day, but the light was beautiful at the hour of our appointment, and the view on the Chevaliers-Montrachet, Montrachet and other vineyards was gorgeous.
If you click on the picture on the right, you will see a general view of the Montrachet/Chevaliers-Montrachet vineyards as we arrive on the spot, following Anne-Claude Leflaive : on the centre-right of the picture, you can see the stone door through which you walk into the walled Chevaliers-Montrachet vineyards.On the center-left, at mid-slope inside these Chevaliers-Montrachet, you can see two stone heaps called meurgers in Burgundy.And in the background behind the two hikers along the road (Burgundy by foot, that's a good idea...), you can see the white van used by the Domaine Leflaive staff who work in the vineyards below.

Looking at her staff busy working in the vineyards belowWe followed her by car to the Chevaliers-Montrachet vineyards, a short drive from the winery in Puligny-Montrachet. Behind the stone door in the background,the Chevaliers-Montrachet vineyards. Below this point, the Montrachet vineyards of the estate, 8 hectares in all, partly farmed on biodynamic principles (2,5 hectares). Further down on the slope, below the départementale road, you can see les Batards, where her staff is working between the rows. In the midst of the Batard-Montrachet plots, there is also the Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet. There are actually 14 hectares of Batard vineyards, part on Puligny and part on Chassagne, and 3 hectares of Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet on Puligny. From this same vantage point, she shows the 6 hectares of the Pucelles in the distance near the road, of which they have 3 hectares. On Bienvenues, they have 1 hectare on the 3-hectare total. Standing near les Caillerets, we look toward Chevaliers-Montrachet on the slope leading to the wooded top of the hill. The total surface of the Chevaliers vineyards is 7 hectares. The soil on Montrachet is very red-looking, with a striking difference with Chevaliers-Montrachet's, in spite of a 5-meter distance between the two climats. The red color comes from a high density of manganese. Once you walk under the stone door to the Chevaliers-Montrachet side, the soil loose this redish look, it's more limestone here. The door to the Chevaliers-MontrachetThis low wall makes Chevaliers-Montrachet look like a clos. 7 hectares altogether, split in maybe a dozen owners, she says, Domaine Leflaive owning the largest chunk, 2 hectares.
To reach the Domaine Leflaive's rows, we walk a bit toward the south, or lefthand after passing the stone door. The ground is a bit humid, there has been lots of rain the previous day. B. asks about blossoming time in the vineyard this year, Anne-Claude Leflaive says it was in mid-may. Counting 90 days or 100 days later for the harvest, they can anticipate the picking stage, somewhere between september 5th and 7th.
The Chevaliers-Montrachet vineyard (the Domaine Leflaive part of it) beyond this door is about 40 years old. When a vineroot dies, they take it out and replant another one. Sometimes they have to uproot all the vineyard and start from scratch, like elsewhere on a village vineyard that they bought some time ago : this one-hectare vineyard was formerly conventionally farmed and they preferred to start anew and plant new vines in its place. When they have to do that, they replant with massal selections made in their own vineyards and not with clones. This method asks for a long selection of vineroots along consecutive years. Looking at the vines on Chevaliers-MontrachetThere are also differences inside the Chevaliers-Montrachet proper, and the Domaine-Leflaive rows where we stop have obviously a soil with a higher limestone density than the ones when just passed the Clos door. She says that this particular plot gives wines with more minerality and fineness. The Montrachet with its red earth is incomparison less mineral, if yet with a good aromatic complexity. She says that these different soil features give neatly individualized wines. On the Chevaliers-Montrachet plots, which are slightly higher on the slope, the earth is less deep than in the Montrachet, with a table rock beneath. Recently, having had problems with a few vines which didn't stand after replanting on a particular spot, they probed the ground with a mine bar and found a large rock table which was maybe a meurger, a place thick with stones which were used in the past to build stone huts on it. She points to a couple of meurgers [picture on right] emerging clearly from the vineyard further uphill. These thick stone concentration in certain spots of the vineyard also help drain the soil after heavy downpours. This upper plot that we see from below is even more calcareous she says, ans lots of stones were gathered atop such meurgers in the 1970s' to ease the plantings. The Domaine Leflaive got this "Chevaliers du haut" plot at that time and planted it. This particular plot somehow brought the estate toward biodynamy because in 1988 (she was not around yet), there had been violent storms and to prevent the earth from flowing down the slope they decided to build demi-buse drains to channel the water. For the anecdote, when the earth gets washed by a storm, they can't bring any earth to replace the vanished one. This is all very reglemented and you can't bring earth there that isn't the natural product of time. So the only thing they could do then was to bring back up the earth that was still on the plot (but lower) and try to make up with the lost thickness of the soil. Using back-baskets for that, it was a tiresome operation and didn't entirely repair the loss. When she came on the estate, she looked at the problem. At the time, they were still using herbicides, and she noticed that plowing instead of spraying could help the ground sustain heavy rains without melting down the slope because instead of flowing, the water could get instantly under the surface. Once they implemented this regular plowing, they noticed the difference between these plots and the ones of the neighboors which were still conventionally sprayed. The domaine Leflaive plots didn't face the erosion phenomenon anymore while their neighboors had to keep bringing back the flowed earth manually. Down to the grape view-of-the-world : stones and leaves (Chev-Montrachet)Anne-Claude Leflaive says that the ground aeration was a very important step when they decided to turn organic. The good management of the soil had been stopped around 1975 when chemical weedkillers came on the market. These then-new products brought respite to the vignerons who at last could get rid of the grass, but it killed lots of important subsoil life. From the 1970s' to 1990 the vineyard was worked this way alas, plus the fertilizers and pesticides. At Domaine Leflaive, they began asking themselves questions between, say, 1987 and 1990. They awoke to the notion that something had to be done to preserve the terroir. And in 1990, this was it, they engaged the family estate on this new path.
in 2008, the weather has been difficult and they suffered like others but still made a relatively satisfying harvest. They had to make a severe sorting and lost 20% of the grapes compared with the previous years. She expects 2008 wines to yield nice results. 2009 until now seem a good year. Spring was not too hot, winter was a real winter, cold and long, which is important to let the vines rest and to kill some pests. She says also that a cold winter is good for the décavaillonage stage which consists in a first plowing at the foot and a second one later to push the earth back in place. For the plowing, she uses both a tractor and a horse, but recently the guy who guides the horse got stuck between the horse and the van and had a broken rib, so she prefers to keep along the two plowing methods. She used to have the biodynamic sprayings made by a helicopter but they discontinued this because the calendar is very important for these type of sprayings and the chosen date was not often compatible with the weather (the helicopter needs relatively good weather conditions to fly). Now the staff do the sprayings on foot with back containers, walking together, each in a different row. That's good for the spirit and the understanding of the staff for the biodynamie. Plus it's at a very nice season, after the harvest and before the leaves' fall, in october. Domaine-Leflaive's staff at work in the Montrachet vineyardsAs we look at the staff from afar, Anne Claude Leflaive says that they probably do some clearing around the vines, at the foot, putting back the branches back in place so that the spraying machine can pass without problem. They have to spray these days because of mildew & oidium pressure following the rain and warm temperatures. Asked if there has been lots of water downfall, she says no, there has been some rain yes, but the total rainfall is not that big. She lives in the Côte-de-Nuits area and she saw heavy rain falling the day before, but the plants show signs of water shortage. It's not that bad for the vines because after 18 years of regular plowing, they are deep-rooted and find humidity and nutrients far from the surface. The grapes are also less prone to acidity problems because of that.
As we walk along a few rows which seem different, she says this is not Domaine Leflaive's. The vines there seem not to have been trimmed, with branches raising high over the rows. She says the growers make an experiment there and she adds that they're also interested at Domaine Leflaive to try this non-trimming mode. They have been experimenting it for a while elsewhere but they have to rethink their training system and handling of the vines. Leaving the apex grow for example might force them to raise significantly the height of the wires. But it's quite positive on the maturity level, the photosynthesis and the sap flux. The exchanges in the plant are better this way, so they might decide to extend the experiment.
On the didease front, the main worry in the region, in Burgundy is oidium and mildew.Mildew is relatively easy to fight. For example, in 1993 which was a year thick with mildew, they could get through the rough waters with reasonnably-low copper sprayings, although they had just begun working biodynamiclly in 1991. For oidium, 2004 was a difficult year in Burgundy with a strong disease pressure in the vineyards of the region. But actually Domaine Leflaive vineyards were relatively spared by the brunt of the didease and she credits biodynamy for having made their vines strong enough to get through nearly unscathed compared to some other vineyards. The harvest was even excellent with nearly perfect grapes while elsewhere the situation was disastrous with many unusable black clusters. It's by the way the first year where neighboors realized that this biodynamie thing at Domaine Leflaive was maybe serious. Magic Burgundy drive behind Anne-Claude Leflaive...This picture was shot after our meeting with Anne-Claude Leflaive. we wanted to find the shortest way to Savigny-les-Beaune and she offered to show us the way. Guided by Anne-Claude Leflaive through the wonderland of Burgundy terroirs under this beautiful sky, we marvelled at the narrow road and the landscape under this after-rain light...domaine LeflaivePlace des Maronniers21190 Puligny-Montrachetphone +33 3 80 21 30 13fax +33 3 80 21 39 57www.leflaive.fr

Comments

[Henry Hrankowsky]

Bertrand- What is the next best map book for the cote d'or--since the ones by Charlotte Fromont are not available. I am planning a trip for November 2011- Thanks

[Bertrand]

Henry,

I don't know actually, having made no reserch on the subject. I'll make another comment here if I see something.

[Henry Hrankowsky]

Thanks Bertrand. In the meantime--I'll enjoy your work here.