So, Stan Kroenke, owner of Screaming Eagle & sports teams aplenty, now owns majority of Bonneau de Martray. A white to go with the red

— Jancis Robinson (@JancisRobinson) January 4, 2017

Jancis (above) was the first to post on this, in English. One hour ahead of her was the following in French.

My rough commentary is:

American Stanley Kroenke has acquired the majority of the capital of Domaine Bonneau Martray
Kroenke, approaching 70 years old, and owner Arsenal football club in the UK, plus US basketball, soccer and football teams, is also the owner of, amongst others in the US, the Screaming Eagle winery.

The Bault de la Morinière family (Jean-Charles – pictured right – 15 Dec 2016) for a long time have told the tale of ‘only 3 owners in 1,250 years‘ but the family have now sold the majority (whatever that means) of their shares in the domaine to Stanley Kroenke for an undisclosed sum – and he’s not a Frenchman! – but maybe this allows the family to claim maintenance of ownership, even if a minority ownership.

At nearly 70 years of age, Kroenke is roughly the same age as Jean-Charles; whilst the latter has been looking for a successor, the former continues to forge deals. I had heard that the generations following Jean-Charles were not interested to take up the reigns of the domaine – maybe there was no other possibility – or indeed this was the least worst solution, assuming that Pinault and Arnault were potentially unwelcome suitors…

I hope that it works well for all the parties involved, Jean-Charles has been a fantastic steward of the domaine, I have always enjoyed my many discussions with him, though it’s also a domaine that has been blighted with oxidation issues in the last years. According to Les Echos, Armand de Maigret, ‘the French general manager for Mr Kroenke’s vineyards, will supervise the property while maintaining its unique identity.‘

More Leflaive: I originally posted about this in my Domaine de la Vougeraie 2015 report, in December 2016.

Seemingly, and for many weeks, this was Burgundy’s worst kept secret, yet no-one publicised it, and I’ve still seen nothing official about this from either domaine; but, just before Christmas, Pierre Vincent finished his career as winemaker chez Domaine de la Vougeraie. He has now started in that role for Domaine Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet.

Pierre has made super whites for a long time, no less so his 2015s chez Vougeraie, where he was responsible for a little over 42 hectares of vines – all managed with biodynamics. Chez Domaine Leflaive he now has 24 hectares, again, all biodynamic. (Drouhin are the largest Organic/Biodynamic practitioners with 78 hectares including Chablis)

I think it’s fair to say that the expectations (rightly or wrongly) of Domaine Leflaive clients will be higher – given their long history of excellence – though their wines having been patchy since 2002 (quality and resistance to oxidation).

Actually, I’ve found Domaine Leflaive just a little opaque in the last vintages – ‘who actually has been making the wines and taking the big decisions for the last 18 months?‘ – I don’t know. Of-course Leflaive made the recent big decision to the change to DIAM closures from the 2014 vintage – I think we can be pretty sure that Brice de la Morandière (cousin of Anne-Claude Leflaive, who took on the role as head of the domaine in May 2015) was responsible for that decision. It will be interesting to get Pierre’s updated take on that, as the wineries of the Boisset group have been resistant to that particular change – Vougeraie remaining with cork for top whites in the 2015 vintage – but perhaps that was a Boisset group decision, rather than left to individual wine-makers.

But good luck Pierre, I’m sure that lots of people will be watching!

The Domaine Leflaive label is has changed little since its inception in the 1920s, when Joseph Leflaive decided to bottle at the property – itself an innovation at the time.

The label when first done stood out from contemporaries, because creamy ‘parchment’ colours were the fashion, but the background to Leflaive’s label was very white. Then there is the coat of arms; two cockerels on each side of a shield that contains five Saint Jacques shells: a route through Puligny-Montrachet is one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela (1500 kilometres away) and these shells are the symbol of the route.

Over the years, however, the label had started to become more cluttered due to successive legal necessities, such as the marking of volume, alcohol content, country of origin of the wine, Grand Vin de Bourgogne and such et-ceteras.

Now the label will be more direct and minimalist, the legal niceties having been moved to a new back-label – the coat of arms and lettering now updated with clarity in mind. I’m looking forward to getting up close and personal to them!