Four growers, three wines each. Landed, rested, and opened for the first time.
Marcel Couturier, Morey-Coffinet, Domaine Thénard, Humbert Frères
Twelve wines, four domaines, three wines each, all of it one vintage. Regional, village, then the top of what they make, twice up Burgundy: whites from the Mâconnais to the Côte de Beaune, reds from the Chalonnaise to the Côte de Nuits.
Sunday, September 27th
Burgundy Container, The First Look
Hosted by JJ (John Jens)
Lunch: 12–3pm, 12 wines and 4 courses, $145
Masterclass: 4–6pm, 12 wines & canapés , $85
You can't taste a domaine from one bottle.
That's the quiet problem with how most of us drink Burgundy. A single wine arrives, you like it or you don't, and you file the name away, but you've met the site, not the person. You have no idea what that grower does with their hands, because you've nothing to compare it against.
We've landed a container from four domaines and left it alone for eight weeks. Wine doesn't enjoy the journey from Burgundy to Fremantle, and opening a bottle the week it arrives tells you more about the container than the cellar. So these have sat still, in the dark, at temperature, until they were worth pouring. Tonight is the first time any of them has been opened here.
Rather than skim the highlights, we're showing three wines from each domaine: a grower's regional wine, their village or named site, and the top of what they make. Same cellar, same decisions, same vintage. Everything that changes inside a bracket is the ground the vines were standing in.
Which means that for the first time you get to hear the two voices in a Burgundy separately. One is the place. The other is the person. Taste three wines in a row from the same hands and the house style steps forward, a shape in the acid, a weight, a way of handling oak, and once you've heard it, you can hear it in every other glass they make.
Four domaines. Four distinct signatures. The whole thing walks north up Burgundy twice: whites from the Mâconnais to the Côte de Beaune, then reds from the Chalonnaise to the Côte de Nuits
Producer overviews
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Pouilly-Fuissé, Mâconnais · First estate vintage 2005 · Chardonnay
Domaine Marcel Couturier works the southern Mâconnais from the commune of Fuissé, with Marcel now joined by his daughter Cladie and son Auxence. The estate's eleven hectares of Chardonnay lie across a geological fault, so several different soils meet within a small area, and many of the vines are well over seventy years old. Couturier is one of the few estate bottlers in the tiny appellation of Pouilly-Loché, and farms certified organic and biodynamic, with cover crops, home-made compost and poultry in the rows. In the cellar the wines are picked by hand, fermented with native yeasts and raised in mostly used barrels without bâtonnage. They are pure, fresh and firmly structured, southern Burgundy with serious ambition.
In the hamlet of Fuissé, at the heart of Pouilly-Fuissé, Marcel Couturier farms a small domaine of old Chardonnay vines alongside his daughter Cladie and son Auxence. It is very much a family affair, just eleven hectares, worked by hand and watched closely.
The vines are the heart of it. Sitting across a geological fault, they draw on a patchwork of soils within a tiny area, and many are well over seventy years old. The family farms organically and biodynamically, with cover crops, home-made compost and even poultry working the rows. In the cellar they do as little as possible: native-yeast ferments, old barrels, no fuss, so each wine tastes of where it grew.
Couturier is also one of the few growers to bottle its own Pouilly-Loché, a tiny, often-overlooked appellation. The wines on offer climb from easygoing village Mâcon up to the single-vineyard Pouilly-Fuissé Clos Scelles, honest, ageworthy white Burgundy from a family worth knowing.
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Morey-Coffinet sits at the heart of Chassagne-Montrachet, its name drawing together three of the village's great winemaking families: Morey, Pillot and Coffinet. The estate was founded in the late 1970s by Michel Morey and his wife Fabienne, and is run today by their son Thibault, widely described as the rising star of Chassagne. He farms its eight and a half hectares organically, certified since 2018, and works with a light hand in the cellar, favouring natural ferments and minimal sulphur. The holdings are a roll-call of fine white terroir, including the premier crus La Romanée and En Cailleret, Puligny's Les Pucelles and the grand cru Bâtard-Montrachet. The whites are precise and mineral, the reds silky and balanced.
“The Rising Star of Chassagne-Montrachet”
“Morey-Coffinet produce some of the finest and most modern and most recommendable Red & White Burgundies that we have landed.” — John Jens
Founded in the late 1970s by Michel Morey (son of the late Marc Morey) and wife Fabienne (from the Pillot clan). Their son, Thibault, took over the helm of the estate in 2009. Thibault joins a long lineage of winemakers in Chassagne-Montrachet with great gravitas in their family names such as Pillot, Morey, and Coffinet. In 2014, he began to pursue biodynamic viticulture, gaining certification in 2015. A solid foundation of 1er Crus come from the southeast-facing hillside; the whites reflect the very essence of Chassagne with fragrant aromatics framed around powerful minerality, while the reds hone in on terroir, revealing roasted, muscular aromas while displaying silky texture and balance.
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Givry, Côte Chalonnaise · Since 1760 · Pinot Noir & Chardonnay
The Thénard family has owned vines in Givry since 1760, and the estate as it stands was founded in 1842 by Paul Thénard, son of the famous chemist and baron Louis-Jacques Thénard. Its heart is here in the Côte Chalonnaise, where it farms the leading premier crus of Givry, several of them monopoles. Yet the estate is known the wine world over for something rarer: it holds the second-largest parcel of Le Montrachet, the most celebrated dry white vineyard in existence, along with plots of Corton Clos du Roi and Pernand-Vergelesses. The reds are made traditionally, in century-old open wooden vats with gentle, low-oak ageing. This is a domaine of quiet grandeur, offering both honest Givry and one of the great trophies of Burgundy.
Domaine Baron Thénard has been based in the quiet village of Givry, not Gevrey, for nearly two centuries. In one of Burgundy's great twists of fate, the family's unsuccessful attempt to buy Clos de Vougeot led instead to the purchase of around 1.8 hectares of Le Montrachet.
The domaine is now led by André Bordeaux-Montrieux, bringing the next generation into cellars long kept by his father Jean-Baptiste, a traditional, robust country squire and devoted custodian of this remarkable estate. It remains a domaine built on patience, restraint and old Burgundian ways.
The wines remain deeply traditional: slow fermentations, old wooden vessels, gentle handling and very little new oak. For years they have sat slightly under the radar, but they are now gaining the recognition they deserve: honest, age-worthy Burgundy that still offers some of the most reasonable value in the region.
From our visits, including tastings back to the 1970s, the message is clear: these lesser-known Givry Premier Crus age beautifully, and the wines being made today are stronger than ever.
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Domaine Humbert Frères is a small, seven-hectare estate in Gevrey-Chambertin run by brothers Frédéric and Emmanuel Humbert, cousins of the celebrated Dugat family with whom they share several old parcels through inheritance. They work only Pinot Noir, much of it from vines forty to fifty years and older, and farm with care, green-harvesting to keep yields low and picking among the earliest in the village. In the cellar the approach is traditional and unshowy: gentle extraction, restraint, and ageing in Burgundy oak, rising to all-new barrels for the grand cru. The wines are deep, structured and built to reward the cellar, and they have a devoted following among those who know them.
“Take a look at the Humbert wines: you'll thank me.” — Allan Meadows, Burghound.com
“The strong point of the Humbert estate is once again, its remarkable series of first growths, elegant, authentic, highly recommendable. The production volumes are limited, as always with the Dugat.” — Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve
“The wines of the Humbert estate are distinguished by their elegance, their finesse and their aromatic power.” — Oenovinia.com
The Humbert brothers, Frédéric and Emmanuel, have wine in their blood and the earth pegged to their hearts. Men of few words, but always just and profound, they embody in themselves the common sense of the peasant, or rather winegrower. Domaine Humbert Frères has always been family, the two brothers, cousins of the Dugats, have been in charge since 1989. They exploit around Gevrey-Chambertin 7 hectares of vines, only in ownership. The plot is remarkable and the plant material, largely old vines (more than 40 years) is not to be outdone. The vinification is traditional, grapes destemmed, punching down and regular pumping over rather long vatting. The wines are cut for aging and express themselves wonderfully after a few years of cellaring.
The Wine List
First Bracket · Marcel Couturier
2023 Mâcon Aux Scellés Chardonnay · Mâcon
87 Points, Jasper Morris MW, Inside Burgundy, January 2026
Morris notes vines beside the winery on silty soil, eight months in the domaine's oldest barrels, a pale colour with a light green tint and a classic Mâcon nose, and a touch of heat at the finish. 13.5%. Drink 2025-2027, tasted June 2025.
2022 Pouilly-Loché Vieilles Vignes Chardonnay · Pouilly-Loché
The domaine's oldest vines, the eldest planted in 1928, on ground more than sixty per cent heavy clay. Couturier only bottles this cuvée in years that earn it; otherwise the fruit goes into the village wine. Its appearance on a list is a statement about the vintage before you pour. Quiet power rather than display: layered orchard and citrus fruit over a long mineral spine.
2023 Pouilly-Loché Le Bourg Chardonnay · Pouilly-Loché
92 Points, Jasper Morris MW, Inside Burgundy, January 2026
From vines of eighty to eighty-five years, described as the continuation of En Chantone into the village. Morris finds a fine pale lemon colour, a more immediately generous bouquet of ripe lemons and fresh plums, and a palate carrying a little bacon fat, spice and length. Drink 2027-2031, tasted June 2025.
Second Bracket · Morey-Coffinet
2023 Bourgogne Chardonnay Côte d'Or
Declassified Chassagne-Montrachet fruit, farmed and vinified exactly as the crus above it. Organic since 2018, native ferments, minimal sulphur, part raised in clay jars alongside the barrels to keep the oak from shading the fruit. Pale lemon, juicy and open, on the fleshier side of the house style. Not a wine to think hard about, which is rather the point.
2023 Ladoix Chardonnay
Ladoix is the northernmost village of the Côte de Beaune, in the shadow of the Corton hill, and its whites stay cheap largely because few drinkers can place it on a map. It is also the outlier here: almost every Morey-Coffinet vine sits in Chassagne. Taut and stony, white orchard fruit drawn out along a saline line.
2023 Chassagne-Montrachet Les Houillères Chardonnay
91 Points, Neal Martin, Vinous
The 2023 Chassagne-Montrachet Les Houilleres is a level up from the regular Village, with more mineralite and terroir expression. The palate is well balanced and linear in style, with a keen line of acidity, fine weight and a sapid, chamomile-tinged close. Maybe the 2022 had a touch more depth on the finish, but this is worth seeking out. (Drink between 2025-2035)
91 Points, Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy
Old vines with a younger plot as well. Mid lemon yellow. The bouquet has a discreet distinction, more in minerals than flesh, one jar again. Tighter and more precise on the palate, with a light ripe citrus note added to the orchard fruit. In bottle.
Third Bracket · Domaine Thénard
2019 Givry 1er Cru Bois Chevaux
Pinot Noir · Givry Bois Chevaux Premier Cru
The largest of Thénard's three Givry premier crus. Mid-slope, east-facing, red iron-rich soil, vines sixty to eighty years old, sitting directly below Clos Saint Pierre. Spontaneous ferments in open wooden vats more than a century old, then old foudres and barrels with no new oak. Dark cherry and earth, supple and savoury. Drinking well now.
2018 Givry 1er Cru Clos Saint Pierre
Pinot Noir · Givry Clos Saint Pierre Premier Cru (monopole)
A Thénard monopole, and the highest of the domaine's three Givry crus. East-facing on red soil at the top of the hill, aged in seasoned barrels with no new oak. It gives the most tannin of the three and is the one built to age. Darker-fruited and firmer than Bois Chevaux, with a savoury mineral grip.
2018 Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru Île des Vergelesses
Pinot Noir · Pernand-Vergelesses Île des Vergelesses Premier Cru
Thénard's holdings outside Givry total under five hectares, and this is one of them. A south-facing site on the flank of the Corton hill, widely held to be the finest premier cru of Pernand-Vergelesses and argued by many to deserve grand cru status. More aromatic and red-fruited than the Givrys, rose and spice over fine tannins.
Fourth Bracket · Humbert Frères
2023 Bourgogne Côte d'Or Rouge
Bourgogne Côte d'Or is the stricter denomination: tighter yields, and the vines must sit in the Côte d'Or itself. Humbert's comes from parcels in Gevrey-Chambertin and neighbouring Brochon, off the same seven hectares and out of the same traditional cellar. Sweet red-berry fruit, medium weight, supple, carrying a thread of the seriousness found further up the range.
2023 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes
91 Points, Neal Martin, Vinous, November 2024
Martin describes eight parcels toward the north of the village giving more complexity than the straight village wine, with brambly red fruit alongside briar and iris notes, finely chiselled tannins, gentle grip and a subtle salinity at the finish. He expects it to age with style.
2023 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Poissenot
91 Points, Allen Meadows, Burghound
Moderate wood frames fresh if decidedly ripe aromas of red raspberry, wild dark currant, plum and a whiff of the sauvage. The sleek and succulent middle weight flavors possess good if not special density while displaying reasonable depth and persistence on the youthfully austere finale. This compact, powerful and serious effort will need at least some keeping before it's ready for prime time. (Drink starting 2033)