Chablis 1er Cru Montmains, Chablis. France.

The domaine of Jean-Marc Brocard began with just one hectare, a wedding gift from his father-in-law when he married into a wine growing family. He has to now expanded to 200 hectares, of which eighty are biodynamic, and is widely recognised as one of Chablis’s leading producers.

The approach is one of minimal intervention in both vineyard and winery: cultivation is practically organic throughout, with ploughing in place of herbicides, predators instead of pesticides, manure rather than usual fertiliser, and as little spraying as the grape’s health requires. The results are pure, unadorned expressions of the great chalk slopes of Chablis. The vines are thirty years old.