Producer profile: Domaine des Comtes Lafon
Producer of some of the world's best white wines, owner Dominique Lafon remains ambitious, with ventures in Mâcon and Oregon. Stephen Brook visits the famous Meursault estate...
The Napoleonic laws of equal inheritance mean that vineyard ownership has slowly been divided again and again through the generations.
These days, few Burgundy producers own more than a few rows in any one village.
Negociants, by contrast, buy grapes or wine from lots of different growers, allowing them to make wines in larger volumes.
To make matters more complex, some well-known growers will make wine from their own holdings as well as buying in grapes from elsewhere. Some domaines make both estate wines and negociant wines, under separate labels.