If you cut through one of Nicolas Potel’s veins, it would probably bleed red burgundy. His father, Gérard, died young, in 1997 – and the family’s Domaine de la Pousse d’Or in Volnay is now in the hands of a Swiss owner, leaving Nicolas to make his way with what was initially an eponymous négociant business and is now a mixture of his own vineyards and bought-in wines under the respective names Domaine de Bellene and Maison Roche de Bellene. The latter business depends on calling in wines and favours from vine growers the length of the Côte d’Or, people with whom he grew up, so he is particularly well plugged in to the nuances of the fortunes of the blessed “golden slope” that is responsible for all of the world’s great burgundy.
I taste with him every year and, last December, over dozens of his 2012s, he described a completely novel situation: “My father said it would happen but it’s still a bit destabilising – all this money to buy land coming from outside Burgundy. There have been really big movements in the price of land, which is now completely stupid. It’s become simply too expensive to buy it to make wine or to buy land from the rest of the family.” This is perhaps a little rich, since his backers are Asian as well as French, but it reflects the common structure of most domaines, or small wine farms, in Burgundy, whereby they are run by one or two family members but have to pay an annual dividend to many other family shareholders.
As land prices soar – one ouvrée, 428 sq m, sold for €2.4m recently – largely thanks to investment from Bordeaux, the US and Asia, many non-winemaking sisters and brothers of vignerons have been keen to sell their shares in their family domaines. But young vignerons are loath or unable to borrow the finance for such an acquisition themselves. Burgundian farmers may be castigated by their customers for treating themselves to smart German cars for Sunday best but most of them spend their days in the vineyard. These are essentially farmers, with a long tradition of caution. Extremely high prices would be needed just to pay the interest.