Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair

Becky Wasserman

About Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair

Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair is a young domaine started in 2000 by Louis-Michel Liger-Belair, an agricultural engineer and oenologist, with those few parcels of vineyards remaining in family hands. In reality, the domaine is not at all young; Louis-Michel is renewing two hundred years of family tradition dedicated to Burgundy.

The Liger-Belair family settled in Vosne when Louis Liger-Belair, a Napoleonic general, acquired the Chateau of Vosne in 1815. The domaine grew considerably under the general’s direction and that of Louis-Charles, his adopted son. Louis-Charles married Ludovie Marey, who was from a well-known Burgundian family that owned vineyards and had been negoçiants since the eighteenth century.

When the Comte Louis-Charles died, the family’s holdings covered more than sixty hectares. These sixty hectares included some of France’s most prestigious appellations: the monopoles of La Romanée, La Tâche, La Grande Rue, a large portion of Malconsorts, parcels of Chaumes, Reignots, and Suchots in Vosne Romanée, Saint Georges and Vaucrains in Nuits St. Georges, Clos Vougeot and Cras in Vougeot, Chambolle, Morey, and Chambertin.

The Comte Henri Liger-Belair, grandson of the Comte Louis-Charles, the eldest child of the family and great grandfather of the current head, Louis-Michel, died in 1924. He left a wife and ten children in possession of twenty-four hectares of vines and the chateau. The domaine remained intact until the death of the Comtesse Liger-Belair in 1931.

Of the ten children, two were minors and the law of that era required that all children must be of age in order to receive their inheritance. Three of the family members did not want to wait until the younger children reached legal adulthood and insisted that the entirety of the domaine be put up for sale. August 31st, 1933 was a sad day when the vineyards were auctioned off at the town hall of Vosne Romanée. The children witnessed the sale of their patrimony of La Tache, the Malconsorts, the Brulée. However, not all was sold off. Two of the children, one of them the Comte Michel, Louis-Michel’s grandfather, banded together to buy back La Romanée, Reignots, and Les Chaumes. The vineyards were entrusted to local vignerons, and sales to Burgundian negoçiants.

The Comte Michel died in 1941 during the war before he could redevelop the Domaine. His son, the Comte Henry, Louis Michel’s father, enlisted in the army in 1949, pursued a brilliant career and rose to the rank of General – following in the footsteps of his ancestor six generations earlier. He managed the domaine but the vineyard work was done by sharecroppers, and wines were sold to various negoçiants.

When he was eight years old Louis-Michel informed his parents that he intended to live in Vosne-Romanée when he grew up. His father told Louis-Michel that he could not take charge of the domaine unless he became an engineer. Louis-Michel listened to his dad – he majored in science, became an agricultural engineer, and earned a diploma in oenology from the University of Dijon.

Nathalie Pacareau-Lamarche, formerly of Domaine Nicole Lamarche, along with another family member, has chosen to claim her inheritance and in doing so, take her portion of the vineyards that Domaine Lamarche exploited through the 2021 vintage. They were then leased to Liger-Belair so effective with the 2022 vintage, seven vineyards totaling 2.65 ha will now appear under the Comte du Liger-Belair label, either individually or as part of the holdings that the Domaine already has. They are: .3077 ha of Grands Echézeaux, .50 ha of Malconsorts, .21 ha of La Croix Rameaux, .24 ha of Echézeaux situated in Les Champs Traversin, .365 ha of Suchots located in the desirable upper portion known locally as Grands Suchots, .594 ha of Clos de Vougeot and a .43 ha parcel of the Vosne villages Aux Réas. All of the new vineyards are leased through 2050.

In the Vineyard

It is important to work the soil, and not to use herbicides, to let the terroirs express themselves … or simply live! This particularly ensures a microbial life of the soil, essential to a harmonious life of the various constituent elements of the earth.

Since 2002, we have been using horse-drawn ploughing for part of the Domaine’s vineyard in order to limit settling on sensitive soils. Far from being a fashion trend, these methods have shown their value for centuries and should be perpetuated in order to further improve the quality of exchange between roots and living elements of the soil.

Spring and early summer are the time for phytosanitary treatments, mainly aimed at preventing the development of powdery mildew and mildew.

At the Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair we have been practicing biodynamic growing on the entire vineyard since 2008. We are Ecocert certified under the label from Biodyvin. Therefore, only herbal infusions and copper against mildew, sulphur against powdery mildew and various biodynamic preparations are used during the year.

In order to limit the settling inherent to the passage through the vine rows, which results in less exchange between the root and the elements composing the soil, all treatments are carried out with light machinery.

The treatments are limited to the maximum. Once the cluster has reached the closure stage, usually during the second week of July, treatments are, if possible, stopped, allowing a further reduction of two treatments.

No anti-rot treatment is carried out on the Domaine, since it is an admission of failure, as it proves in general that we were unable to control the vigour of the vine.

Finally, with regard to the vine pests known as “grapevine moth”, namely Eudemis and Cochylis, butterflies that lay eggs in the bunches and promote the development of rot, a global biological control approach is being implemented throughout the commune of Vosne-Romanée and Nuits Saint Georges, by placing pheromone capsules in the vines that prevent males and females of the species from meeting and thus from mating (sexual confusion). Implemented for more than 20 years throughout the Vosne-Romanée and Nuits Saint Georges vineyards, this has enabled the area to be recolonized by numerous self-regulating insects.

The quality of the wine lies in the vineyard (95% of the work is in the vineyard, 5% in the vat house)

All vines and all wines deserve the same care, from a village appellation to a Grand Cru. In a qualitative goal, it is without any doubt more important to reduce yields on the simplest appellations than on the most prestigious ones.

The vine is a living being. It should not suffer, nor should the grapes it carries, be subject to that we ourselves would not tolerate.

In the Winery

Louis-Michel Liger-Belair considers that when the grapes are on the sorting table at the entrance to the vat house, 95% of the work is done. The remaining 5% is not a recipe but the application of certain simple principles and a dose of intuition and understanding of each vintage.

At the Domaine we wish to bring in the grapes as soon as possible once they are ripe, and we do not want to harvest a parcel in two days.

The grapes are cut and transported to the vat house in small perforated crates of 14 kilos of grapes, in order to avoid crushing the bunches. The grapes are sorted on arrival in the vat house on a sorting table by a team of 8 sorters and then destemmed in whole or in part, depending on the cuvées and vintages. They are then sent to the vat by belt conveyors. The integrity of the grapes is thus respected since they are never pumped or mixed.

Once in the vat, the grapes are slightly sulphited and cooled to a temperature below 15 degrees, a temperature that will be maintained for a week. This allows an aromatic extraction, essential to the wines of the Domaine. After this week, the fermentation starts naturally in a few days, without the addition of yeast.

Fermentation then takes place for about ten days, concluded if necessary with a light chaptalization, divided in two or three days depending on the vintage. During the vatting period, pumping over is carried out, as well as some punching down. Once the fermentation is over, the wines are devatted according to the tasting done twice a day, and to the characteristics of the vintage.

Pressing is then carried out using a small vertical press. The free-run wine and the press wine are then blended and left in vats for a settling that will last nearly 10 days, in order to barrel the clearest wines possible, the ageing being done without racking. Once the wines have been clarified, they are barrelled by gravity into the cellar.

All the wines are aged in new barrels coming from three barrel-makers and three different forests. Malolactic fermentations begin then naturally either before or after the first winter following the harvest. The wines remain in barrels without racking, as far as possible, and without any addition of sulphur until racking prior to bottling.

This racking is done without pumping, by pushing the wines into the air to assemble them in bottling tanks, generally between 10 to 18 months after the harvest, depending on the cuvées and vintages. The wines are then sulphated and left in bulk for 2 to 3 moons in vats under an inert atmosphere. There is no fining or filtration on the wines before bottling.

Bottling is done by gravity. Corks are not put in a large hopper, as usually, but put one by one in a column, in order to control and orient them so that the best end of the cork is in contact with the wine, after a rigorous selection of each cork.

Wines are then stocked and shipped only two months after bottling. All the wines leave the Domaine in wooden cases including a protective straw-packing and customised silk paper.

In the vat house and cellar, the less we do, the better we do.

We should not aim to over extract grapes. Anything that does not come naturally (tannins, colour) cannot be fixed permanently in the wines and will thus not be stable in the bottle in the long term.

Where in the World is Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair?

Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair is based in France, Burgundy, Côte-de-Nuits, Vosne-Romanée with additional holdings in Flagey-Echezeaux, Nuits-Saint-Georges and Vougeot. The La Romanée Grand Cru sits just above DRC’s Romanée-Conti and next to their Richebourg.