Hubert Lignier

Twenty-Seven Rows from 1955

In the Monts Luisants climat, at the upper edge of the Grand Cru Clos de la Roche, stand twenty-seven rows of vines that Henri Lignier planted in 1955. They are the genetic origin of this estate: in the 1960s Henri propagated his other parcels from their wood by massal selection, vine by vine. Anyone drinking a Lignier wine today is drinking a lineage that began in these rows.

The old vines are prone to millerandage: they bear tiny, often seedless berries of enormous concentration. Since 2017 Laurent Lignier has bottled the harvest from this parcel separately as the cuvée “MCMLV” – Roman numerals for 1955 and a tribute to his grandfather. There are barely two barrels per vintage, and it is one of the most sought-after Pinot Noir wines in the entire Côte de Nuits.

A Family from Morey

The story begins in the 1880s. Jacques Lignier, a chef de culture on someone else's estate, bought parcels that phylloxera had rendered worthless – land nobody wanted any more. His son Jules patiently replanted it, and by way of Henri the property finally passed to Hubert Lignier, who took charge in 1959.

In 1973, in the middle of a slump in sales, Hubert made a decision that would shape the estate: he bottled his wines himself instead of selling them to the négociants by the barrel. The anonymous grape supplier became an address with a name of its own – and with every decade new sites were added, right across the Côte de Nuits: Morey-Saint-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Gevrey-Chambertin and the Clos de Vougeot.

Romain, and What Lives On

In 1992 Romain Lignier, the youngest of the three siblings, joined his father. Together they began ploughing the soils again, and Romain's wines quickly found admirers far beyond Burgundy. He died in 2004, aged just 34. The years that followed were hard – for the family and for the estate.

It was Romain's brother, Laurent Lignier, who picked up the thread. He had learned his craft elsewhere, including at the Beaune house of Albert Bichot, before returning to Morey in 2004. By 2013 he had brought the domaine back together, and he has run it ever since – the fifth generation on the same land.

Gravity, Not Pressure

Laurent quietly changed the way the estate works. From 2007 synthetic products disappeared from the vineyards, and in 2019 the estate received organic certification. The cellar in Morey, in use since 2008, works by gravity alone – no pump moves the wine, from the must to the bottling. Fermentation is preceded by long, cool macerations; the proportion of whole bunches has grown over the years, while new oak has been deliberately scaled back and spread across four cooperages so that no single barrel dominates the wine.

The result is Pinots of cool precision – finely drawn, delicately built, made for length and clarity. The range runs from an approachable Morey-Saint-Denis to the great sites: the Clos de la Roche Grand Cru at its heart, alongside Charmes- and Mazoyères-Chambertin and the Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Aux Combottes – that lone premier cru island in the middle of the band of grands crus, wedged between the Clos de la Roche and the Latricières-Chambertin farmed by the neighbouring Trapet Père & Fils family. Anyone wishing to get to know the house without reaching straight for a grand cru will find the estate's signature in miniature in the Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru “Les Chaffots”: cool fruit, fine-grained tannin and a long, clear finish.