Thierry Glantenay

Thierry took over from his father Bernard in 2002, leaving behind his career in engineering for the siren song of his family’s vines. However not much was bottled and sold under the family name for three main reasons; Bernard’s reputation as a fastidious farmer, the wealth of his ‘terroir’ – Caillerets, Clos des Chênes, Santenots, Rugiens, Folatières… and the fact that they had mostly old vines. The ‘courtiers’ that often came knocking had very good money to offer for the wine and Bernard found it hard to refuse the likes of Dominique Laurent, Lalou Bize Leroy and Louis Jadot. In fact, this year, Domique Laurent came knocking for a barrel of Pommard Rugiens this year but Thierry chose not to sell. All this has meant that the estate has existed well and truly under the radar of wine critics and collectors until very recently when Thierry started turning all the family grapes into bottled wine. In 2008 he invested everything he had into a new press, tanks, peristaltic pumps and two ‘tables de tri’ including a vibrating table to optimise sorting. The difference to the quality has been tremendous. He likes the style of wines of Mugnier, Fourrier and Roumier – not bad inspiration for your own wines and his ambition is to produce wines full of finesse; a word overused in Burgundy where, despite it’s romantic allure, very fine wines are incredibly rare. Thierry today is producing some of the best wines in the Côte de Beaune, his style is for definition, purity and because he has old vines he gets the concentration that comes with them. He uses a portion of whole bunches depending on the season and only about 20% new oak each year across all the wines.