Domaine Leflaive is a family estate in Puligny-Montrachet, in Burgundy's Côte de Beaune, with roots that reach back to 1717, when Claude Leflaive first settled in the village. The domaine in its modern form dates to 1905, when Joseph Leflaive, a former naval engineer, bought vineyard land left depressed by phylloxera and began replanting it with rootstock suited to each parcel. He started bottling and selling wine under the family name in 1920, and his sons Vincent and Jo spent the following decades building the estate's reputation as a serious producer of white Burgundy.
Vincent's daughter, Anne-Claude Leflaive, took over management of the domaine with her cousin Olivier in 1990 and assumed sole control in 1994. It was Anne-Claude, working closely with winemaker and vineyard manager Pierre Morey, who converted the estate's vineyards to biodynamic farming, a process begun in the early 1990s and fully in place by 1997, making Leflaive one of the earlier adopters of the practice in Burgundy. Since Anne-Claude's death in 2015, her nephew Brice de La Morandière, the fourth generation of the family to run the estate, has continued that approach.
The domaine's vineyard holdings center on four grand crus in Puligny-Montrachet and its neighboring commune, Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet, totaling roughly five hectares. Premier cru and village-level parcels add more than fourteen further hectares, all planted to Chardonnay on the limestone and chalk soils that define the appellation. Farming across every parcel follows the same biodynamic discipline, with low yields and hand harvesting aimed at preserving the character of each individual climat.
Among the premier crus, Clavoillon holds a particular place in the domaine's history. Leflaive is by far its largest owner, farming close to five hectares there, well over eighty percent of the climat, with vines averaging several decades of age. Broader shouldered and more assertive than some of Puligny's more delicate sites, Clavoillon has become something close to a signature wine for the domaine, made in meaningful volume and offering the clearest expression of the Leflaive style at the premier cru level.
The house style that has made Leflaive a reference point for Chardonnay growers well beyond Burgundy favors precision over weight, with fruit that stays pure and unforced even in warmer vintages, and a mineral, saline thread that runs from the village wines up through the grand crus. i.WINE currently carries the Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc 2022 and the Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clavoillon 2022.
