“Time is necessary,” Paul-Etienne Defaix tells me. He should know – he is the 16th generation of his family to make wine in Chablis – and, at Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix, time is everything.  Wine has been made at the Domaine du Vieux Château (the property’s historic name, which still features on the labels today) for eight centuries, and under the Defaix family since 1610. Much has changed in Chablis over the past 400 years, however – and today the estate is a last bastion of the Chablis of yore.   Demand for Chablis was booming by the 1970s, and producers reduced the élevage (the time wine spends in barrel or tank), bottling, releasing and selling the wines earlier. These modern wines, often bottled within six to 12 months, were lean and crisp, but for Paul’s father Daniel-Etienne, they were disappointing – lacking the complexity and ageability of wines that spent longer on their lees (the dead yeast cells). Daniel-Etienne decided to do things differently – to return to making wine the way they had in generations past – and the family hasn’t looked back.  Generally, their approach is to let the wine be – waiting, watching and waiting some more. Fermentation is all with indigenous yeast and notably slow, taking up to six months, with malolactic fermentation left to rumble along on its own timescale, only finishing after up to two years. Their Premier Cru wines then spend up to nine years on their fine lees, while for the Grands Crus it can be up to 15 years, kept at a cool 10-12°C.  During the wines’ extended élevage, autolysis takes place – the enzymatic breakdown of the dead yeast cells, or lees. It’s the same process that takes place in Champagne and other traditional-method sparkling wines aged on their lees, and is the key to the Defaix – and once traditional – style of Chablis, giving the wine a rounder mouth-feel, and lending bready, toasty complexity. It is also, for Paul, “key to revealing terroir”. Although the tiny volumes of Defaix’s Grands Crus and Pinot Noir go into oak, most of the wines are aged exclusively in stainless steel, meaning it is only the site and time that you taste in the bottle. Once deemed ready, the wines are bottled and released into the world.  Ageing its wines in stainless steel tank for not months but years, Defaix creates textural, complex wines that are only released as they reach their drinking window. It is a rebellion, Paul tells me, against “a society of rapid consumption”.  Paul is now in charge of the property’s vineyards and winemaking, although his father is still involved in the business. Paul studied in Beaune, getting experience at a handful of estates – largely focused on Pinot Noir – before returning to the family domaine, working his way from the vines to the cellar. As Daniel-Etienne told him, “You need to learn your soil, your vines, then you can make the wine – and then you try to sell it.”  And, although it’s often the style of winemaking that steals headlines at Defaix, the domaine has some remarkable vineyards. The family farms 28 hectares in total. It has two Grand Cru parcels (0.15 hectares in Blanchot and 0.3 hectares in Grenouilles), but it’s the property’s Premiers Crus that have built its reputation – with four hectares each in Côte de Léchet and Vaillons. From these, they produce three wines: their Côte de Léchet, Les Lys and Vaillon. Importantly, the latter is Vaillon, not plural Les Vaillons – their parcel lying in the historic heart of this Premier Cru, prior to its expansion in 1976. Les Lys is a cooler climat within the larger Vaillons, and is often our favourite of the range, while the Côte de Léchet is drastically steep – with a 45% gradient.  The remaining hectares are largely dedicated to the estate’s village Chablis – their Vieilles Vignes. These vines are all over 45 years old, but some are very old – own-rooted, having survived phylloxera and now 145 years in age. When I ask Paul how this half-hectare has managed to survive ungrafted, he pauses, before saying: “I think God prays for these vines.”. They crop a mere 15hl/ha, but produce beautiful fruit (“For my bank, it’s bad; for my wine, it’s perfect!” Paul jokes) – and are now used for massal selection across the estate.  The final piece of the property is a tiny section of Vaillons planted to Pinot Noir, which is bottled as Bourgogne Rouge (as the land is only classified for Chardonnay production). Comprising less than a hectare, these vines too are ancient, planted in 1900, and still on their own roots.  Their spacious cellars are stocked with back-vintages, carefully maturing – a bank of wine that eases the vagaries of each specific growing season, protecting them from dramatic drops in yield – something that is a constant threat in Chablis. Take 2024, a year that was challenging across much of northern Europe with its wet conditions and high disease pressure, but in Chablis also brought hail that devastated huge swathes of vineyard – including Vaillons.  Global warming might have made it easier to ripen grapes in this marginal region, but it’s also made for more extreme conditions – highs and lows that keep producers on their toes. It’s also, arguably, made Chablis a little less Chablis. With riper fruit, the wines are less steely, taut and lean. Harvest dates are inevitably earlier, Paul notes, to preserve acidity and retain Chablisien backbone, but he also emphasises that the fruit requires not just sugar ripeness, but phenolic ripeness – to give dry extract and allow the wines to age. For him, working with old vines and low yields is key – both to phenolic ripeness and to preserving Chablis’s style.  The 2014 vintage – the first that Paul made – has finally just emerged from the cellar, over a decade after it was produced. It’s been a long wait, but delayed gratification is part of life at Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix.   Explore all current listings of Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix – including the 2014 Vaillon – or read more about Burgundy. 

In many ways, time stands still at Chablis’s Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix. As the latest vintage is released, we caught up with Paul-Etienne Defaix – the 16th generation to take the helm at one of the region’s oldest addresses 

Exploring this traditional Chablis estate and its top Premier and Grand Cru wines with 16th generation winemaker Paul-Etienne Defaix

Worth the wait, Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix’s Chablis wine

Worth the wait: the wines of Domaine Daniel-Etienne Defaix   

At Lafite Rothschild, Antoine Granger said that while vintages like 1986 (“rich but good”), 1990 and 1996 are drinking well, the 2000 is “beautiful” and the 2005 “brilliant”.  It might be young, but – if you can decant it 12 hours in advance – the more modest 2022 Duhart-Milon is also showing well, he noted. Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse also pointed to 2000 (a “fabulous” vintage) at Beauséjour, while she finds that some 2004s are superb. She also recently had tasted 2005 Latour and said it was “magnifique”.   For Pierre-Olivier Clouet at Cheval Blanc, 2004 is a vintage he loves. The 1998 is drinking very well, he noted, but the 2009 and 2012 are brilliant – having never shut down, something echoed elsewhere. He’s just starting to broach the 2007, a wine which he says was “a teenager” for a long time but is now starting to reveal its potential. The 2012 is also, for him, a new sort of 2011.  Palmer’s Sébastien Menut was another to point to 2007 – saying how well it was drinking, and a recent bottle of 2014 Trotanoy was a real standout bottle for him.   For Juliette Couderc, the 2009 and 2012 Evangile are still winners – although there isn’t that much left around, sadly; she likes the 2008 too, but feels the 2004 and 2005 aren’t yet ready, while vintages like 2016, 2018, 2019 need more time before broaching. Indeed, at Vieux Château Certan, Alexandre Thienpont pointed to 2009 (a vintage he feels is just starting to open up – reenforced by a bottle our team enjoyed in Bordeaux during primeurs) and the 2012 is drinking well.  David Suire at Ch. Laroque is happy to uncork almost any vintage between 1995 and 2020, he told us (anything older requires a special occasion, he joked), but highlighted the 2014 as a wine that is starting to open up, and – although still young – the 2019 is a very fine wine that is brilliant, it just needs decanting. And he’s not the only one to be enjoying the 2019s: Troplong Mondot’s Ferréol du Fou has been drinking the 2019 a lot, decanting it for an hour or two, while he was also particularly enthusiastic about the 2017s – wines which he feels are drinking well from across Bordeaux.  At La Conseillante, Marielle Cazaux echoed this – the 2019 is pure pleasure, for her, a “silky, delicious fruit bomb” at this youthful stage, and the 2017 is similarly rewarding. Looking back a bit further, she’s still waiting for the 2015 to emerge, but loves the 2012 – which combines tertiary complexity with power.   Shop the wines or read more about the region 

All eyes may currently be on the nascent 2024s, but in amongst primeurs, we took a moment to talk to Bordeaux’s top producers about the vintages to drink now. Here’s what those in the know are pulling the cork on

As the 2024 vintage is released en primeur, we asked Bordeaux’s top produces which vintages are best to drink now: here’s what they said 

Bordeaux: the best vintages and wines to drink now 

Bordeaux vintages to drink now  

The Thienponts reign over Bordeaux’s Right Bank. At Vieux Château Certan, Alexandre Thienpont – almost always dressed in his Barbour – rules, producing Pomerol of immaculate pedigree, as his family has for over a century now. Nearby, cousin Jacques Thienpont holds court at Le Pin, Pomerol’s original cult address. Nicolas Thienpont is another cousin whose domain stretches out from Saint-Emilion – from Pavie Macquin and Larcis Ducasse across to several estates in the Côte des Francs. And the dynasty continues to grow, as each thread of this complex family finds a new corner of the region to master.  The Flemish family has a long history in the world of wine, having traded French wine (especially Bordeaux) since 1842. Georges Thienpont – grandfather of Jacques, Alexandre and Nicolas) was the first to move into production, buying Ch. Troplong Mondot in 1921, then Vieux Château Certan in 1924. It wasn’t long before the Great Depression hit, however, and Georges Thienpont was forced to sell Troplong Mondot in 1934. Reportedly the only reason he kept Vieux Château Certan was that no one wanted to buy it – with vines holding little allure at the time. It was the château itself at Troplong Mondot, positioned at the highest point in the region and with a view across the village of Saint-Emilion, that allowed him to sell the Saint-Emilion estate. Georges continued to make wine through the Second World War and the devastating frost of 1956. Despite a challenging start, “VCC” (as it is affectionately known by wine-lovers) has become one of Bordeaux’s leading names.  It was Jacques Thienpont, however, who thrust the family firmly into the limelight. It was in 1979 that Jacques, then still a Belgian wine merchant, purchased a 1.6-hectare vineyard in Pomerol. The site had produced generic Pomerol, but Jacques started making tiny volumes of opulently styled wine, naming it after the lone pine tree (“le pin”) that stood on the property. The 1982 vintage was pivotal, receiving significant critical acclaim – especially from Robert Parker – and soon Le Pin became one of the world’s most desirable wines.  Just over 30 years after that first vineyard purchase, it seemed like fate when Jacques went to see a plot of land in Saint-Emilion right next to Troplong Mondot. Previously known as Ch. Haut-Plantey, the potential of the site was clear to Jacques and the symmetry of the Thienponts returning to where their family’s winemaking legacy began seemed fitting. He bought the property in 2010 and put Cyrille Thienpont (his cousin once removed) in charge of its daily running. In keeping with the arboreal theme, he named the Saint-Emilion venture L’If (the yew tree).  The first project the team undertook was a detailed soil map to get to grips with the site. The winery is in Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, just to the east of Troplong Mondot, with five hectares of vineyard around it and another two hectares of west-facing vines next to Saint-Hippolyte. The lower parcels are more eroded and sandier, but much of the vineyard sits on pure limestone and clay. They set about restructuring the vineyard – getting rid of the 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and increasing the portion of Cabernet Franc, with around 25% across the property today (any new plantings were with a massal selection from Pavie Macquin).  In 2013, Jacques bought another hectare or so of vines in Saint-Etienne-de-Lisse, right next to Ch. Puy-Blanquet. Despite the quality of the soils, Jacques was hesitant about buying such a “distant” plot, a whopping three kilometres as the crow flies – or a circa 10-minute drive. They pulled the vines out and replanted this additional parcel, harvesting its first fruit in 2018. Despite its youth, the fruit from the plot has made it into the final blend for every vintage of L’If since 2020 (“Worth the trip,” jokes Cyrille). Even with the significant replanting and this new plot, the average age of vines across the estate is around 40 – with the oldest over 60 years in age.  Work on a new winery finished just in time for the 2023 harvest, allowing greater precision and flexibility – with more space to work (and 16 concrete tanks for their eight hectares of vines). You might expect a flashy building, perhaps designed by a famous architect – but that’s not the Thienpont way. Understatement is everything for this family – and the winery is an almost exact replica of what stood there before, simply with more space inside, designed for simple functionality. In one corner stands an otherwise anonymous stainless-steel tank – the first one that Jacques bought for Le Pin back in 1979.  It was perhaps inevitable that L’If would sit in Le Pin’s shadow. But now, 15 years after Jacques Thienpont bought the estate, with a new winery and the significant work in the vineyards completed, L’If is building its own reputation.  Although the same team is largely involved in both estates, L’If is a totally different site and wine. The cool soils have better water-holding capacity, and budburst is around 10 days later than at Le Pin with its warm free-draining gravels – a gap that often widens as the growing season progresses, meaning harvest is significantly later here. Diana Berrouet Garcia – who acts as Managing Director for Domaines Jacques Thienpont, including both Le Pin and L’If – notes how at L’If the terroir seems to speak louder than the vintage and can better adapt to more challenging conditions, while the vines can struggle – especially in hot, dry years – at Le Pin. Where Le Pin is round, supple and exotic, L’If is linear, taut and mineral; one sensual and spherical, the other just on the right side of severe, with a crystalline quality. Even in the last few years, it’s amazing how the wine is evolving – nipping at Le Pin’s toes in terms of quality. Re-tasting the 2019, it’s amazingly approachable with a perfumed nose and juicy, pure fruit that complements the wine’s natural tension.   It's still comparatively early days for L’If –  and the team has invested significantly, focusing on shaping the vineyard and ensuring they have the tools in the winery to translate the work in the vines. For now, over half the vineyard is being used for the second wine, Les Collines d’If – something that will change in time, as they continue to replant parcels. As it happens, yews grow incredibly slowly – but are also some of the longest-living trees (Perthshire in Scotland is home to the Fortingall yew, thought to be 2,000-3,000 years old and one of the oldest trees in Europe). The Theinpont family is just settling in at L’If, but as they lay down roots, the potential is clear.   The Thienpont family: who does what?  Jacques Thienpont: Owns Le Pin, L’If and L’Hêtre (the latter with his sister Anne de Raeymaeker), but is also a co-owner of Vieux Château Certan. He oversees the family’s original Belgian wine merchant business, the Belgian Royal Warrant-holding Thienpont Wine, which is managed by his wife and award-winning wine writer Fiona Morrison MW.  Alexandre Thienpont: Co-owns and manages Vieux Château Certan with his son, Guillaume, as well as co-owning Le Pin with Jacques. Alexandre and Guillaume also farm the vines at Le Pin, L’If and L’Hêtre, as well as Vieux Château Certan.  Guillaume Thienpont: Manages Vieux Château Certan with his father, Alexandre, as well as making L’Etoile and Les Fillottes with his second cousin, François Thienpont. He also now manages Ch. Guillot-Clauzel, which is not owned by the family.  François Thienpont: Manages the family’s négociant business, Wings, as well as making L’Etoile and Les Fillottes with Guillaume Thienpont and is a co-owner of both Vieux Château Certan and Ch. Puygueraud.  Nicolas Thienpont: Owns and/or manages a group of estates with his son Cyrille: Pavie Macquin, Larcis Ducasse, La Prade, Laclaverie, Charmes Godard and Puygueraud.  Cyrille Thienpont: Owns and manages the Nicolas Thienpont group of properties with his father, as well as managing and making the wine at L’If.  There are many more members of the Thienpont family involved in wine, but these are the most prominent at the time of writing.   Explore all current listings of L’If or read more about Bordeaux 

Le Pin is one of the world’s most famous wines – but it’s just one of the Thienpont family projects. We dissect the dynasty and explore the evolution of L’If, the Saint-Emilion estate that is emerging as one of the region’s most exciting names

Jacques Thienpont created cult Pomerol wine estate Le Pin in 1979, but now he’s got a new project in Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux: L’If 

Exploring L’If: Le Pin’s Saint-Emilion sibling 

It’s four centuries since the Giraud-Hémart family first began farming vines in Aÿ, writing the first chapters of an extraordinary legacy.   Although they started out as tenant farmers, the Church granted them a swathe of land in the 17th century – with François Hémart the first member of the family to be registered in the parish records. The modern history of the family, however, starts in the 20th century, when a soldier by the name of Léon Giraud was garrisoned in Aÿ and fell in love with Madeleine Hémart. The couple soon married and had a son, Henri Giraud, moving into the property that the family still lives in today.  At the time, vineyards across the region had been abandoned in the wake of phylloxera and Léon set about replanting three hectares of vines. For 300 years the family had been growing grapes and selling the fruit, but after Henri returned from the Second World War, he and his father decided to start making their own wine – establishing the Giraud-Hémart label. The business grew and evolved, especially after Claude Giraud (Henri’s second son) arrived in 1972, aged just 20. Working with his father over the 1970s and ’80s they rejigged the vineyard holdings and acquired additional holdings to make up the 10 hectares they own today, as well as changing the property’s name to Champagne Henri Giraud.   In 1990, they started buying in additional fruit to meet demand and made their first vintage of Fût de Chêne – the wine that became Argonne from the 2002 vintage. Although in the 1990s the family was ageing wine in oak, it is only in the 21st century that they started working exclusively with oak from the Argonne forest – now integral to the House’s identity.  The Argonne forest was historically the source for much of the wood used in Champagne, home to over 150 coopers, but was gradually abandoned, suffering from particular damage during the Second World War. Henri Giraud has made it a mission to restore and protect the forest, working with the French National Forest Office (ONF) on a replanting program (and have planted over 60,000 trees to date). The House feels Argonne oak is a key part of their terroir – indeed their top wine takes its name from the forest. The poor, dry soils of the forest mean oak trees grow particularly slowly, resulting in a particularly tight grain, creating a delicately flavoured wood to complement the delicate wines of Aÿ.  Today, the business remains a tightly knit family affair – with the 13th generation running the show. Emmanuelle Giraud is at the helm of the House, having taken over from her father Claude, who while not officially part of the business remains present and involved in key decisions. Emmanuelle’s sister Anne le Golvet-Giraud was drawn to therapeutic practices, launching the property’s trademark Craÿotherapy – chalk-based wellness program offered at their in-house hotel (they were one of the region’s first producers to welcome visitors for tastings and now to stay). It is Anne’s husband, Sébastien le Golvet, who is in charge of the winemaking.  “It’s very important to always be curious, to seek something better from the wine, from the grapes,” Giraud tells us. No one embodies this philosophy at Giraud more than Le Golvet, a force who, since he arrived in 2002, has pushed to experiment and innovate both in the vineyards and winery. Over the last two decades, he’s introduced residue-testing on their soils to confirm their triple-zero approach (zero pesticide, insecticide or fungal control spraying – something they feel is more impactful than organic certification and have long pioneered), banished stainless steel from the winery (using only terracotta and wood) and toasts every barrel the House uses himself. Constantly looking for new ways to elevate the wines further, he has recently created and started using custom barrels with sandstone heads. As Emmanuelle tells us, his philosophy is firmly that, “The best wine will be the next one.”  Henri Giraud manages to balance being at the cutting edge with the patience that traditional-method sparkling wine requires. As Emmanuelle explains, they have to make sure everything is perfect from the moment the grapes are harvested – for any mistakes will be discovered in a decade’s time. While she’s concerned with broader strategy and planning for the business, when it comes to harvest-time, you’ll find her on the winery floor, managing fruit receival, each and every year, seeing the culmination of the year’s work.  Being independent and family-owned allows them the luxury of a truly long-term vision. Each vintage they make trials, the results of which will only be revealed in 10 years’ time, but they’re investing far beyond that – planting 12,000 trees in the Argonne forest each year, making sure that Henri Giraud will still be able to use this special oak in two centuries’ time. The House’s extraordinary wines reflect this vision, testament to their relentless pursuit of quality and remarkable attention to detail. Who knows what the next 400 years will bring – but it will certainly be worth following.  Explore all current Champagne Henri Giraud listings, including the amazing MV10, disgorged in 2017, or read more about Champagne and sparkling wine  

The Giraud-Hémart family has grown vines in Aÿ for 13 generations – starting to make wine under their name in the 1950s. Today Champagne Henri Giraud is one of the region’s smallest houses – and one of the few to remain family-owned. Here, we dive into the property’s heritage with Emmanuelle Giraud 

The Giraud-Hemart family has been growing vines since 1625. Today the family’s descendants run Champagne Henri Giraud – we dive into their legacy and wines 

Celebrating 400 years of Champagne Henri Giraud 

Four centuries of Champagne Henri Giraud 

Sitting plum in the middle of the Côte d’Or, the hill of Corton is hard to miss. Its wines, especially the whites, however, are all too often overlooked. We sat down with some of the region’s leading producers to explore the pedigree and potential of this site and its powerful, long-lasting wines

Discover the pedigree and potential of the hill of Corton’s whites – the fine Chardonnay from Corton-Charlemagne, Charlemagne and Corton Blanc 

Exploring Corton-Charlemagne, Charlemagne and Corton Blanc 

Corton-Charlemagne: the Grand Cru of the future?  

Each November, the wine world looks to Burgundy for the Hospices de Beaune auction. We dive into the history of this philanthropic institution, the domaine and the wines it produces

Explore the history of Burgundy’s Hotel-Dieu and Hospices de Beaune, its wine estate and the famous annual auction, the Vente des Vins

Your guide to the wines of the Hospices de Beaune

Everything you need to know about the Hospices de Beaune

In March this year, Opus One announced that they’d hired Meghan Zobeck as Director of Winemaking. It’s the first step in the transition as longtime winemaker Michael Silacci looks to step away from the business over the next five years. Silacci has been at Opus since 2001 and is a bonafide legend in the valley today – finding a suitable successor is no small task.  Zobeck wasn’t necessarily the obvious choice. She’s risen rapidly through the ranks of Napa’s winemaking elite – but only moved into the world of wine in 2012. That move was a leap of faith for Zobeck – an unlikely one for someone immersed in the world of NFL.  Zobeck grew up in Greeley, Colorado – “a cowtown” in her words, but one that happened to be where the Denver Broncos held their training camps each year. Throughout high school, she spent her summers working for the team – as many locals did. She went off to college (then pre-med), but kept working for the Broncos, moving to full-time while she studied for her MCATs.  In her senior year of college, she did an internship with the team, working with the scouts and sitting in the “war room” on draft day. “I loved the action, the fast pace of it,” she says. At around the same time, she realised that medicine wasn’t for her – instead she took a role negotiating player contracts for the Broncos, becoming one of only a handful of women in the job, and loved it.   It was a weekend trip to Los Olivos in the Santa Ynez Valley that sparked her interest in wine and – more specifically – winemaking. Back home, she found an ad in a local magazine for a homebrew shop – offering the chance to buy grapes during harvest. Soon she was experimenting, fermenting batches of wine in her basement and having bottling parties with friends. “I just saw how it really brought people together,” she says. She travelled to more wine regions and fell for the way wine combined science, creativity, history and community. The NFL had served her well, but it was time to take that leap and leave the Broncos behind.  She did her first vintage at Clos Apalta in 2012, and didn’t look back – doing harvests in Piedmont, Bordeaux and the Barossa, before zoning in on Napa – first at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and Screaming Eagle, then taking a job with star consultant Philippe Melka. Most recently, Zobeck was winemaker at Burgess Cellars – where she had free rein to shape the wines, from the vineyard through to the winery.  Zobeck first met Michael Silacci at Premiere Napa Valley – her first showing barrel samples from Burgess. Silacci came over to taste and then – in a clear display of approval – kept sending others her way. Zobeck was focusing on a fresher style of wine, a return to the Burgess of yesteryear, but was also working towards a regenerative approach in the vineyard – and soon discovered that the Opus One team was doing similar experiments. She and Kimberlee Marinelli – Assistant Winemaker & Viticulturist at Opus One – connected and started discussing everything from pollinators to native ferments. Zobeck was struck by the clear lack of complacency from a property that had no need to prove itself further. Little did she know that Silacci was observing what she was doing with particular interest – and decided she could be the heir to his throne.  “It’s a job you never, in a million years, think is going to become available,” says Zobeck of the moment she was approached about becoming Opus One’s Director of Winemaking. There was no way she was turning down such an opportunity – especially not when she would have the chance to work with Silacci for several years.  Zobeck will take on Silacci’s legacy at Opus One – an estate that has been constantly evolving during his tenure. Organic farming has been the norm at Opus for over two decades, although they only sought certification in 2021. For over a decade, Silacci trialled biodynamics but found the vines became too vigorous. He abandoned the approach before launching into regenerative farming from 2022. The estate now works with permanent cover crop between the vines, helping lower temperatures in the canopies, retain water in the soils and lengthen the ripening period, without increasing sugar levels. Silacci has been experimenting with dry farming since 2007 and reducing irrigation across the estate, although it remains essential for now. The team hopes, however, to be able to dry-farm a new site in Oakville once the vines are established. This work is all reflected in the wines being produced today.  “Opus One is not the stereotypical Napa of the early 2000s,” Zobeck emphasises. “It’s a fresh style, and to keep that we have to farm differently.” Silacci is famous for saying he doesn’t want his footprints in the vineyard or fingerprints on the glass, but Zobeck notes how you can see his influence on Opus One over the years, especially from 2004. From 2019, however, she feels the wine has evolved further – with greater transparency of the site. The 2023 has just been bottled at a modest 13.5% alcohol – indicative of the estate’s current approach, one that she intends to continue.  Silacci plans to stay for at least three years, working alongside Zobeck as Chief Winemaker. A transition period of this length is testament to Opus One’s long-term view – looking not just at the next vintage, but the next decade and beyond. Zobeck’s excitement for the role is clear – as well as her admiration for the existing team. As in the NFL, a good captain is key, but it takes more than one player to win a game – and Zobeck completes an already impressive line-up. It’s one hell of a hand-off.  The 2022 vintage of Opus One is released on 1st September 2025. Browse all current listings of Opus One or read more about California 

Originally a joint venture between Robert Mondavi and Ch. Mouton Rothschild, Opus One is one of Napa’s most famous estates – and it now has a new Director of Winemaking. We sat down with Meghan Zobeck to find out more about the ex-NFL powerhouse taking over from Michael Silacci

Meeting the new woman at the helm of Napa’s Opus One – Meghan Zobeck, who is taking over from Michael Silacci to make some of the valley’s most famous wines 

Opus One’s new Director of Winemaking: Meghan Zobeck 

Draft pick: Opus One’s Meghan Zobeck  

Inspired by a Russian, first made by a Hungarian, who was succeeded by a Frenchman and then a German, the winemaking lineage at Masseto has been decidedly international – until now, that is. Since January 2024, the leading Super Tuscan and Ornellaia’s sibling estate has had its first native at the helm: Marco Balsimelli – born in Arezzo, not far from Siena, took the reins from longtime Production Director Axel Heinz.  Balsimelli comes with his own illustrious pedigree, having long been based in Bordeaux, working at Gruaud Larose and, since 2010, alongside the famous Eric Boissenot as a consultant winemaker to many of the region’s leading estates, but the chance to work at Ornellaia and Masseto – iconic names from his Tuscan homeland – was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.  It was André Tchelistcheff (the Russian-born Napa winemaker) who first suggested to Lodovico Antinori that a particular hill on the Ornellaia estate would be perfect for Merlot. Tchelistcheff was consulting for Antinori, and recognised the potential of the parcel of blue clay – the same soil that is synonymous with Pétrus. Back then, in the 1980s, Merlot was barely planted in Tuscany and remained an unknown quantity in the region, with only Castello di Ama – based further inland in Chianti Classico – having some vines (today used for its flagship L’Apparita). Nevertheless, the Ornellaia team took a chance and planted most of the seven-hectare swathe of clay in 1984 (additional planting took place in 1995).  The first vintage of Merlot from the site was made in 1987: Masseto was born. The name comes from “masso”, Italian for rock, after the large boulder-like clumps of clay that dot the vineyard’s surface. It didn’t take long for the wine to earn international acclaim, with Wine Spectator giving the 2001 vintage 100 points, and its place was cemented in vinous history.  Although Tchelistcheff consulted until 1989, replaced by Michel Rolland from 1991, Hungarian Tibor Gál was the property’s first winemaker. Gál was succeeded by Thomas Duroux (now of Ch. Palmer), who in 2005 passed the baton to Axel Heinz, the German-born winemaker who preceded Balsimelli. The property has changed hands over the years too, with the Mondavi family taking a share in 1999 before buying it outright from Lodovico Antinori, and selling it onto the Frescobaldi family, who took full ownership of Ornellaia and Masseto from 2005.  Much might have changed, but the terroir hasn’t. “It’s a very special site,” Balsimelli tells me. The all-important clay dominates the topsoil, which is only about a metre deep. When it rains, the clay swells, making it near impossible for the vines’ roots to develop. High sodium levels in the soils only accentuate the problem. “For the roots, it’s a battle every day,” he says. It’s that struggle, he feels, that you can taste in the concentrated, high-acid fruit from the site.  The climate is key too, lying just 10 kilometres from the Tyrrhenian Sea. Fresh marine breezes mean the temperature is around 5°C lower than that in central Tuscany, with a drop of circa 15°C from day to night. Combine this with the light reflected off the sea, and you get a long growing season, preserving aromatics and acidity, yet encouraging phenolic ripeness – wines that combine perfume and power. Surrounded by forest, there is a reason that Masseto is run as an entirely separate project to Ornellaia, with its own unique identity – even if it has always shared a winemaker (and, until 2019, a winery) with its sibling estate.  For Balsimelli, the project has provided a fresh challenge. The shift away from a consultant role – no longer offering advice before moving on to the next project, but sitting with each and every decision – adds a new weight of responsibility. “I spend a lot of time thinking about the technical questions and the consequences,” he tells me. Since most of his work with Boissenot had been based on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, focused on Cabernet-driven blends from larger estates, working with a small property, focused on just one variety and various sub-plots is a different sort of jigsaw puzzle. The approach, for him, is much more Burgundian – all about expressing the purity of the site and its blue clay. “You have to be perfect with only one type of soil and one grape variety,” he explains.  The quest for perfection was started long ago at Masseto and today the vines average between 20 and 30 years in age. They’ve also been moving from cordon-trained to bush vines – first trialled in 2008 and something which they have found helps temper the effects of global warming (coping better in dry conditions and shading the fruit from the heat of the sun). Farmed organically since 2012, there has also been a significant focus on encouraging biodiversity across the site, including using cover crops to reduce soil compaction, increase organic matter and retain humidity in the soils.  Balsimelli’s first vintage was 2024, which won’t be released until 2027. But he’s clearly excited by the site, as well as how he can tweak and improve a wine that is already lauded by critics and consumers. “When you taste old vintages of Masseto, you can feel the legacy, taste the terroir,” he says – and that’s exactly what he wants to do moving forward, channelling the Boissenot philosophy: understanding a piece of land and finding the best solution to express it in the glass. For him, that solution will be all about accentuating the wine’s elegance.  He notes how there was – across the world of wine – a trend towards low yield and high levels of maturity in the early 2000s, but his preferred vintages are those that saw more balance. The 2006, for example, is his favourite at the moment – a year with more rainfall, more vigour, and – he feels – more energy as a result. It’s a vintage that he believes is “the key for the future”.  The site is one that can ripen quickly, and he plans to focus on freshness, maybe picking a little earlier, reducing extraction and lowering temperatures for maceration. The 2022 is the vintage set to be released this September – a wine that Balsimelli notes shows just how good the site is – performing even in tricky conditions such as 2022’s hot growing season. It is, he says, “the magic of Massseto”. Magic it may be, but Balsimelli is set on elevating this special estate even further.   Explore all current listings of Masseto or read more Editorial 

Often considered the Pétrus of Italy, Masseto is a wine like no other. Ahead of the new release, we sat down with Marco Balsimelli – the man at the helm today – to talk about the special site and what lies ahead for the Super Tuscan 

Talking to the Super Tuscan’s new Production Director Marco Balsimelli about Masseto, Ornellaia sibling estate and its unique Merlot wines

The magic of Masseto - Marco Balsimelli

The magic of Masseto

Francois et Antoine Jobard

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