Notes from Becky Wasserman:

"Sylvain Pataille is perhaps secretly one of the most important figures in Burgundy today. Beyond being a leader in organic and biodynamic viticulture, he is also a consulting oenologist for some of the most famed domaines in the region. Sylvain grew up around wine, though his family didn’t own any vines. Sylvain knew from an early age that winemaking would be his career and he attended winemaking school in Beaune to make that dream come true. Right before graduating he was hired by a local lab as a salesperson, where he admittedly was very bad at sales.

He quickly left to start his own domaine in the village of Marsannay, at the northern edge of the Côte de Nuits, while consulting on the side from contacts made during his sales days. Starting with just 1 hectare in 1999, he slowly grew his domaine to its current size of 15ha. Sylvain’s older brother Laurent, a trained oenologist himself, eventually joined the domaine in 2008, becoming Sylvain’s right hand.

Sylvain has at least two parcels on opposite ends of the vineyard. The vines here are old, the youngest being planted in 1949, and consist of Chardonnay, Aligoté, and Pinot Noir for Rosé. Sylvain notes the characteristic reductive minerality despite the change in location, grape, and bedrock. He believes this minerality is so beautiful that it would be a shame to make red wine on this terroir."