Fixin 2009

Founded in 1868 by François Leroy in Auxey-Duresses, Maison Leroy predates Domaine Leroy by 120 years and remains the house where Lalou Bize-Leroy's most exacting discipline is exercised: tasting hundreds of wines blind each year en primeur, buying only the finest grower parcels across the Côte d'Or, then completing élevage in her own cellars before releasing on her own schedule — not the market's. Fixin sits at the northern tip of the Côte de Nuits, where iron-rich clay-limestone soils over Jurassic bedrock produce Pinot Noir of notably darker fruit and firmer structure than its neighbours Gevrey-Chambertin or Marsannay. Fermentation reaches up to 33°C in parcel-matched wooden vats using indigenous yeasts, maximising extraction from fruit that has already passed through sorting teams as numerous as the pickers themselves. Élevage proceeds in François Frères and Cadus oak barrels on the lees, with the wine bottled without fining or filtration — a non-negotiable house position. The special feature here is the release philosophy: the 2009 vintage, a famously warm and concentrated Burgundy year, has been held in Leroy's Auxey-Duresses cellars and released only at Lalou's discretion, meaning the wine arrives with structural integration that a commercially timed release could never provide. At village level, this is the Leroy proposition in its starkest form: appellation Fixin, Premier Cru ambition.