Domaine Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes 2024
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The Land
Gevrey-Chambertin is the largest village appellation in the Côte de Nuits, some 400 hectares of vines running below 26 premier crus and nine grands crus, and the village-level land varies enormously depending on where it falls relative to the slope. Fourrier's Vieilles Vignes is a blend of roughly a dozen parcels across that village land, on the clay-limestone that defines Gevrey. The vines are interwar plantings, some going back to 1928. It is also the domaine's largest cuvée, close to a third of everything Jean-Marie makes, which inverts the usual arrangement: at most estates the volume wine comes from the youngest vines. Here it comes from the oldest.
The Wine
100% Pinot Noir, fully destemmed, four to six days of cold soak before fermentation, native yeasts, hand punchdowns two to four times a day and no pump-overs. Around 20% new oak, which is the domaine's ceiling for everything from village wine to grand cru, held there on purpose so the difference between bottles is site rather than wood. The wine is never racked. It sits on its fine lees until it moves to tank a couple of months before bottling, roughly 18 months after harvest, and Fourrier keeps 600 to 700 mg/L of dissolved CO2 in it through malolactic so it needs almost no sulfur. No fining, no filtration. 2024 was brutal in the Côte de Nuits: April frost, 38 days of rain across May and June, relentless mildew, and coulure through a drawn-out flowering that Pinot Noir largely missed. Reds ran as much as 80% below average, and Gevrey took the worst of the rainfall. What came through is pale, perfumed and low in alcohol, usually under 13%, with red fruit, fine linear tannins and a saline edge. Read it as a vintage of transparency, not of power.
The People
Jean-Marie Fourrier took over in 1994 at 23, after apprenticing with Henri Jayer and interning at Domaine Drouhin in Oregon. The estate itself descends from Fernand Pernot, whose great-nephew Jean-Claude Fourrier joined him in 1961; the name changed when Jean-Marie and his sister Isabelle came in. Ten hectares, four communes, about 70 parcels, roughly 15 wines. The Vieilles Vignes designation is not decorative here: fruit from vines under 30 years old does not enter a domaine bottling at all, it gets sold off, and the vineyard average runs 50 to 70 years. No herbicides since the mid-1990s, replanting by sélection massale only, yields managed through winter pruning and debudding rather than green harvest. He holds no organic or biodynamic certification and does not claim one.
Food Pairing
The classic Gevrey pairings run to boeuf bourguignon and game, and in most years that is correct. In 2024 it would flatten the wine. Aim lighter: roast duck breast with cherries, chicken cooked with morels and a little cream, or a mushroom tart heavy on the thyme. For cheese, l'Ami du Chambertin, the washed-rind made in the village itself, or Époisses if you cannot find it. Serve at 15 to 16 degrees, cooler than instinct suggests. Meet the wine where it actually is and it will repay you.
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Burgundy, in eastern France, encompasses several subregions, but it is the Côte d'Or that is home to many of the world's most expensive and revered wines. The region, primarily a single east-facing slope, has mixed limestone soils that vary dramatically from village to village and even vineyard to vineyard. White wines, crafted from Chardonnay, range from rich and opulent to lean and intensely mineral, while Pinot Noir produces silky, perfumed red wines of exceptional finesse and complexity. Centuries of winemaking tradition have resulted in every plot being meticulously recognized and scrutinized, making the Côte d'Or a true capital of terroir.
Burgundy - Cote d'Or
Pinot Noir is a thin-skinned, notoriously difficult-to-grow, low-yielding grape that finds its ancestral home in Burgundy, France, where it produces some of the world's most elegant and nuanced wines. While Burgundy remains its spiritual heartland, Pinot Noir has since traveled the globe, finding success in other cooler climates, notably in California, Oregon, New Zealand, and Germany. This grape is a challenge for any grower, as it requires specific conditions to show its best, and yet the wines it produces are capable of such a captivating and singular character.
