Domaine Guillot-Broux

Domaine Guillot-Broux

【A pioneer of organic Burgundy: Mâconnais tradition and a deep respect for nature】

Domaine Guillot-Broux is a family of growers now in its fifth generation, based at Cruzille in the Mâconnais.

Pierre Guillot, grandfather of Emmanuel who runs the estate today, was a pioneer of organic viticulture: in 1954 he created the first organic vineyard in Burgundy. Certification came in 1991.

His father Jean-Gérard Guillot, who founded the domaine itself, spent several years learning his craft at Domaine de la Chanaise in Brouilly and with Bernard Michelot in Meursault before coming home in 1978 to start making wine with his wife from a single hectare of vines.

Most of the vineyards lie on east-facing slopes that catch generous sunshine, on clay-limestone soils ideally suited to the vine.

The estate is impeccably kept: plant-based treatments and stable active molecules that leave no residue in the wine, green manure, organic fertiliser, ploughing — natural methods throughout, so that nothing detrimental ever finds its way into the bottle.

The eldest son Ludovic and the second son Patrice joined in 1999, followed by the third son Emmanuel; their father retired in 2004.

The domaine farms 17 hectares today, some eighty percent of it planted with vines that go back to before phylloxera.

A few parcels have been replanted since the family bought them, but organic farming has been practised here from the very first — more than fifty years of working hand in hand with nature.