BENJAMIN LEROUX

Burgundy, France

"Benjamin Leroux, the gifted manager/winemaker of Domaine Comte Armand has started his own label and has a brand new winery in the center of Beaune (just off the Boulevard) that he shares with Dominique Lafon. The operation is very small and will eventually specialize, primarily, in Puligny and Volnay but with many other appellations also covered. Leroux works with vineyards he manages, owns and will also buy fruit (never juice or wine) from growers with who he can work closely; growers that produce the quality of fruit to match Leroux’s exacting standards. Half of the the vineyards are currently organic (this percentage is growing) and 100% of the sites are ploughed with no herbicides or pesticides used at all. In most cases the tiny volumes are between one and five barrels of each wine and a total of 120 barrels were produced in his first vintage, 2007. By the way, some of the cuvees Leroux has been producing for a number of years at Comte Armand. These wines have now come across to the Benjamin Leroux label.

As the Jancis Robinson/Burghound quote below makes clear, Leroux is considered one of the most gifted and knowledgeable wine growers in the whole Cote d’Or. It only suffices to ask any other serious producer about Leroux to realize the respect he has garnered amongst his colleagues in the region. He was always considered a prodigy, studying at the Lycée Viticole in Beaune from the age of 13 and taking the reins at the esteemed Domaine Comte Armand when he was only 26. Leroux’s success with the Domaine’s wines over the last decade has well justified the decision to appoint such a young man to run the show. He will continue to manage Comte Armand despite now having his own range of wines (another sign of how well respected he is). The range will be fine tuned – several grand cru wines are now in barrel for example – and new vineyard acquisitions will add to the offering, however Leroux is determined only to work with vineyards that have been well managed and produce outstanding fruit, regardless of whether or not they have famous names. This makes sense, Leroux’s knowledge of Burgundy is encyclopedic and producers like him are waking up the wine world to the fact that the reputation of many Cote d’Or vineyards has as much to do with the producers who work them than any intrinsic qualities of the sites themselves." -International Fine Wines

"You may remember that when I asked Allen Meadows, aka Burghound, on this video who he thought might be a natural heir to the late great Henri Jayer of Burgundy, one of the two people he cited was young Benjamin Leroux of Domaine Comte Armand."
Jancis Robinson, Jan 2009

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