Pierrick Bouley

Burgundy watchers spent last winter working through Decanter's 2023 en primeur reports, and the Pommard and Volnay instalment, written by Charles Curtis MW, opened with a short list: five domaines, named as the top producers of the two appellations in 2023. Four are exactly who you would expect. Domaine de Courcel and Domaine de la Commaraine in Pommard; Domaine Marquis d'Angerville and Domaine Michel Lafarge in Volnay. Houses with a century or more of pedigree between them. The fifth name is the one worth stopping on: Domaine Pierrick Bouley.

Bouley is not an old name in the trade. Pierrick joined the family domaine in 2009 and took charge only in 2014. To find him ranked, barely a decade later, alongside d'Angerville and Lafarge, the twin poles of Volnay's aristocracy, is the kind of thing that does not happen often in a region where reputations are measured in generations. The story of his 2023s is really the story of how he got there.