Domaine de Montille

The Free Bacchus Story

Hubert de Montille inherited 2.5 hectares in Volnay in 1947 and did not give up his day job. He practised as a lawyer in Dijon for the whole of his winemaking life, and the domaine was rebuilt around a full legal career rather than instead of one.

He made wine the way he argued: a great deal of tannin, structure left in rather than polished out, bottles built to be judged in twenty years instead of enjoyed in two. That put him against the direction Burgundy was travelling. Jonathan Nossiter gave him a prominent part in Mondovino, and it was the way he talked about terroir, rather than the wines themselves, that earned him the screen time.

Etienne trained as a lawyer too, then came back. He joined his father in 1983, took sole charge in 1995 and converted the estate to organic farming the same year, adding biodynamic method a decade later. The domaine now runs 37 hectares across 35 appellations, spread over both the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits.

Certification is Ecocert organic under EU control code FR-BIO-01, verified. The biodynamic method is used and described by the domaine but no certificate has been confirmed, so it earns nothing here.

There is a symmetry in that. A house built by two lawyers on the principle that a wine should be judged on what it can demonstrate rather than on how easily it charms gets assessed here by exactly that rule.