Grapes: Aligoté Dorée + Gamay
Region: Val de Saône, France
Vintage: 2023
Viticulture: Biodynamic
Soils: Limestone
Vinification: Whole bunches immersed in Gamay juice which ferments during the 10 days of vatting. The juice comes from bleeding the tank every day of another tank of full carbonic Gamay.
Aging: 1 year
Fining or Filtering: None
Sulfur: None
Notes from the Importer: Benoit Killian is a musician, wine-seller and more recently wine-maker. After a chance meeting with a bottle from Marcel Lapierre back in 2007, his head was turned toward natural wine and he went to visit Marcel, a revelatory experience. Through the next five years he visited many producers and sold their wines, in between his musical commitments. In 2012 he had been told by Guy Bussière that his domaine was for sale. But at the time did not have the money, the space to vinify and was busy with music.
It was sold to someone else and he thought that would be the last of that story. In 2018 he drove past and saw the vines were a wasteland, not tended too. Now could be the time, he knew the potential of these vineyards which had never had chemicals on them. Guy’s grandfather planted the vines at the turn of the last century and resisted the oncoming of chemical agriculture.With the help of friends like Marc Soyard, Gilles Ballorin & Romuald Valot he checked the vines were recoverable and yes - with hard work they were. Benoit is making precise, delicious wines that offer a taste of the potential of this little heralded part of Burgundy. Predictably, there isn’t much to go around.
