Producer Domaine Jean-Yves Devevey

FRANCE, BURGUNDY

Jean-Yves Devevey could somehow embody the perfect Burgundian "antihero". Born in 1964 in the Hospices de Beaune (the historic hospital that became a national monument), he is the son of a family of farmers and ranchers from Demigny, a wine-growing commune in the Saône-et-Loire plain, between Côte de Beaune and Côte Chalonnaise. He did not inherit a large turnkey ready domaine, but patiently built his technical training and his estate scattered between Rully and Volnay, Beaune and the Hautes-Côtes. In 1992 the first harvest, then a stubborn work that led him to gradually detect valuable plots between the regional, village and premier cru hierarchical levels. Today the area cultivated by the domaine amounts to 7.6 hectares, about half owned and half leased. However, Jean-Yves has no intention of enlarging: "the quality and precision of the work would be affected", he warns. In the vineyard there is no chemical weeding, to which weeding and grassing are preferred, with an official conversion to organic viticulture completed in 2014 (Agriculture et vins biologiques certification) and an active biodynamic experimentation in progress, in particular on the Volnay terroir. In the cellar there are no immutable rules: Devevey adapts his practices case by case, year by year, favoring careful observation. However, fermentations are always spontaneous, the use of enzymes is banned and oenological clarifications put on the index. At most, mild filtration is used before bottling. The sulphites are used very sparingly, for free sulphurous rates always lower than 20 mg / l.