The Hidden Gems of Burgundy: Meet the Levert-Barault Family Vineyards
Levert-Barault, Davenay, Voarick, Au pied du Mont Chauve… These are not very well-known names, but they belong to one of the most important families in the Burgundy farm.
Today, Barbara Picard is in charge of the family business, which includes 140 hectares of vineyards between the Côte Chalonnaise and the Côte de Beaune. However, she resisted the call of the vine for a long time, admitting that she hadn’t had a drop of wine before she turned 20 and moving to Nantes to work at Nike.
On her return to her home country, she moves forward instinctively, with just the right amount of confidence and naiveté. She starts with the marketing, wondering why and how, and has the courage to shake up circles of experts and other local winegrowers, who are clearly as excited as Tyrolean cuckoo clocks at the idea of seeing things differently. Francine is a smart winegrower and businesswoman because she knows how to combine common sense and realism in a way that works.
Domaine Levert-Barault, Chateau de Davenay, Domaine Voarick, and Au pied du Mont Chauve are four organic and biodynamically farmed properties with beautiful soils and weather that seem to invite you to get lost in their complexity. One of our revelations was a 2019 Pinot Noir from the Burgundy area. It had a fresh aroma and swirls of blackcurrant, morello cherry, and liquorice stick on the tongue, and the tannins felt like a kitten’s paws on the carpet. A blend that we didn’t know about before.
One reason for this surprising lack of care? Even though they want to focus on the French market, where the demand for Burgundy wines keeps going up, a fair amount of wines are exported. Francine’s journey to the top may have been as long as an examination of conscience, but her refusal to be radical and her honest, bright look are what have given her the right to make wines that are like her: powerful when she wants to be, tease when she wants to be quiet, and delicate when she wants to be charming. A big area, in all the different ways the word can be used.
