Louis Billard

History

Billard grew up in La Rochepot, a small village in the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune region near Meursault, where his family has been making wine for five generations at the ‘Domaine Billard Père et Fils’. Rather than starting work straight away in the family cellar, he first trained elsewhere. In 2018 and 2019, he worked at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, widely regarded as Burgundy’s most influential producer, and then took part in the 2020 harvest at Domaine Georges Roumier in Chambolle-Musigny. From there, he moved on to work for Newton Johnson in South Africa and By Farr in Australia, before returning home to launch his own brand in 2022.

Vineyards

Billard does not have a single, permanent estate in the traditional sense. Instead, he sources grapes from a multitude of plots scattered across the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits, stretching from Saint-Aubin to Vosne-Romanée, with the plots in the Côte de Beaune being cultivated by him personally.

His range includes wines from the villages, premier crus and even Grand Cru of Meursault, Volnay, Pommard and Gevrey-Chambertin, as well as grapes from the renowned Vosne-Romanée and Clos de Vougeot.

Terroir

This ‘mosaic’ approach means that the terroir varies from wine to wine. Meursault is characterised by limestone and clay soils, suitable for a rich and textured Chardonnay; Volnay is characterised by lighter, more aromatic wines producing soils, whilst the clay soils of Pommard produce denser, more structured red wines. Vosne-Romanée, with its mixture of limestone and marl, is considered one of the world’s most prized terroirs for Pinot Noir.

Grape varieties

Billard works with two classic Burgundian varieties: Chardonnay for white wines and Pinot Noir for reds, which are harvested from vines ranging in age from twenty to over fifty years.

Winemaking

White grape varieties are pressed as whole bunches. Fermentation and ageing take place in 228- and 456-litre barrels from François Frères, Chassin and Meyrieux. Since 2023, the winery has switched to a long fermentation process in cool conditions lasting around 45 days at a temperature of 15–18 °C, using 25–35 per cent new oak barrels for twelve months, after which the wine is blended and aged in stainless steel tanks for a further four months.

Red grapes are harvested in the morning and placed in small crates. Fermentation begins naturally with local yeasts. Maceration varies depending on the vineyard: in concrete vats for Volnay, Pommard and Vosne-Romanée; in stainless steel tanks for Gevrey-Chambertin; and in wooden vats for the grands crus, with maceration lasting from three days to three weeks. Whole bunches are widely used and vary depending on the cuvée.

The wines are then transferred to 228-litre barrels from Rémond and former DRC François Frères barrels, purchased from his former employer, with a medium-to-heavy toasting level and, as a rule, a proportion of new barrels of 20–30 per cent, which increases to 50 per cent for Clos de Vougeot and to 100 per cent for Échezeaux. Red wines are aged for around fourteen months in barrels and a further two months in stainless steel tanks; the grands crus are aged for fifteen months. All wines are racked once by gravity and filtered very gently; a small amount of sulphur is added during bottling.

Wines

The debut 2022 vintage already spanned the ‘regional’, ‘village’ and ‘premier cru’ tiers, and the 2023 vintage followed with improvements, particularly in the white wines and the addition of the Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru. Critics and distributors have highlighted the ‘Mersault’ and ‘Volnay’ wines in the ‘Premier Cru’ category and the Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru as early standout examples, emphasising their precision and restraint, which echo his experience at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, a notably classic style for such a young brand.