Louis Billard
Most new wine labels in Burgundy start small and remain in the shadows for years. Louis Billard skipped this stage. His first vintage, released in 2022, was produced directly in villages such as Meursault, Volnay and Vosne-Romanée, appellations to which producers usually only gain access after decades.
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 and premier crus 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 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
When producing red wines, Billard employs cold maceration prior to fermentation, often using a significant proportion of whole bunches, and sometimes the entire batch, depending on the harvest and the vineyard’s location. Fermentation takes place using indigenous yeasts. White wines are pressed as whole bunches and fermented in barrels on the lees, which gives them texture whilst preserving their freshness.
Ageing takes place in a mixture of new and used oak barrels, some of which were sourced from his former employer, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, for approximately one year, after which the wines spend a further few months in tanks before bottling with minimal filtration.
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. Critics and distributors have highlighted the ‘Mersot’ and ‘Volne’ wines in the ‘Premier Cru’ category 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.
