Guffens-Heynen
Burgundy
The year is 2020. Guffens-Heynen wines had been absent from the US market for over a decade; however, they remained one of the most sought-after domaines for true, ear-to-the-ground Burgundy collectors. We had enjoyed various vintages in Europe and Japan, but due to the 10 year gap of not having a US importer, we wanted to seek out the wines and understand them a bit more. A close friend in the know introduced us; arriving at the estate for the initial visit, we soon spent nearly 9 hours conversing about wine and life.
Coming away from this experience, we realize that we talk so much about focusing on young winemakers who are helping to re-define the future of winemaking - winemakers who are making bold, yet smart changes, and practicing healthy viticulture. It may not seem that Jean-Marie fits into this category, but he does in more ways than one! Jean-Marie and his wife Maine settled in Vergisson in 1976. Despite making wine since 1980, and quickly gaining attention with the banner 1982 vintage, so many of our best collectors had never heard of the estate. With the emphasis today on buzzwords of "sustainable" and "biodynamic" - words which we do feel so often can possess a true value in the right hands - we instead find Jean-Marie Guffens who cannot be defined by either a grape, region or method, and certainly not a region. He is a style unto himself.
After arriving in Vergisson from Belgium, they immediately immersed themselves into learning about winemaking and acquired their first plots of Pierreclos in 1979. Since the early 80s, Jean Marie has been pushing to prove that great Chardonnay doesn't solely come from the Côte de Beaune., nor does it have to have a Premier or Grand Cru designation on the label. His first official vintage was 1982, with the wines from Vergisson, followed by starting the negociant label Verget in 1990, which has in and of itself gained significant acclaim.
VITICULTURE | GUFFENS-HEYNEN
Guffens believes in making honest wines, and is propelled by the belief that his region of Macon can create wines of legendary quality; judging by some of the remarks of critics over the last few decades, few disagree with Guffens at all. Through his varied trials in the vineyards, Jean-Marie's methodologies were firmly in the camp of "less is more" - in fact, he coined the term "non-cultivation" to describe his approach. Whereas many a vigneron would have manicured the vine rows and ploughed regularly, Guffens would instead only plow once and very shallow, and continue to mow the cover crop throughout the year while allowing the vine to be "guided, not restrained." His argument is that maintaining the grass through the year, rather than ploughing it in will both reduce soil compaction and limit nitrogen; the resulting grapes are higher in acidity, smaller (leading to more concentration), and in conjunction with not de-leafing or hedging (which stimulates growth), promotes the vine churning all of its energy into the fruit.
The result? Guffens' clusters are wildly small with tiny grapes; yields are routinely around 37-38 hectoliters per hectare, and the small grapes lend a higher ratio of solids-to-juice; this means more dry extract, or, in more everyday terms, a less dilute and more concentrated flavor. Ripeness is always desired, and so there will be repeated "tries" through the vineyard over multiple weeks to ensure the clusters are picked at ideal times. In total, the Domaine wines’ now consist of 5.65 hectares in Vergisson, Pierreclos, and Davaye.
VINIFICATION | GUFFENS-HEYNEN
As important as picking ripe grapes is in the vineyard, pressing may be one of the most crucial parts of winemaking to Jean-Marie. The grapes are lightly crushed before being pressed. In the winery a modified Coquard press is used; this is also uncommon in Burgundy but more common in Champagne where delicacy is the name of the game. Much like Champagne, where the press cycles are intended to be separated by the regional laws, Jean-Marie will separate his free-run juice - the juice provided only by the weight of the grapes themselves - and the different cycles of the press; by doing so, he will be able to create his wild array of wines that are kaleidoscopic in flavors by virtue of varying levels of density via the pressure under which the grapes were squeezed.
For the most prized vineyards, the free-run and first-press juice is of utmost importance as it is both delicate and low in pH - meaning high-acidity which is hugely important for wines of such ripeness as the Guffens wines are. In short, sorting, fermenting and blending are performed intuitively, which is mirrored by the creative labeling that knows no bounds. Certain vineyards and wines are routinely repeated - Croux et Petits Croux, Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne, etc. - but there are no limits to what Guffens and his winemaker, Julien, can create in any given vintage. The top wines routinely are fermented in barrel, while the young-vine plots will be fermented in concrete. A varying amount of new oak is used, while batonnage is performed multiple times throughout to stimulate a healthy culture in the wine. Ultimately, as Guffens says, each wine "began with an idea." To translate that, no wine is formulaic; the signature here is that of vibrancy, feeling and a true sense of spirit, if not place.
JEAN-MARIE GUFFENS' NOTES ON THE 2023 VINTAGE
We should note that, as with the wines of Guffens and Verget , there is not a formula by which either the winemakers or we as the importers can provide a simple, bulleted list for each wine. Thus, we have made each and every wine's description a bit of a conversation. To begin, Jean-Marie's notes on the 2023 vintage:
Dear friends,
I'm not going to repeat Julien's comments on the climate from last year. Ultimately 2023 is in every way similar to 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. It gets complicated and boring.
The 2023s had a lot of water in the spring which avoided some water stress. For the rest, we once again went from a large harvest to a normal harvest due to the extreme heat which once again caused a blockage of ripeness. The vintage is, however, less marked by these conditions and is more similar to the 2020s than the 2022s. We can therefore speak more of a year of terroir than of heat. And so much the better.
