Domaine Fournillon et Fils

Domaine Fournillon et Fils is based in the small village of Bernouil, around ten miles northeast of Chablis. The family farms approximately 23 hectares across the hills of the Chablisien and the neighbouring Tonnerrois, with vineyards around Chablis, Epineuil and Bernouil.

The domaine has been led by Pascal Fournillon since 2004, continuing a long tradition of family farming in this overlooked corner of northern Burgundy. For many years, most of the harvest was sold to other producers, with less than ten per cent bottled under the Fournillon name. That balance is gradually changing as the domaine builds its own identity and reaches a wider audience.

Its most extraordinary possession is the Vigne de l’Empereur, a tiny parcel of Chardonnay planted in 1835. The sandy soils protected these vines from phylloxera, leaving Fournillon with a rare, living fragment of pre-phylloxera Burgundy. It rather neatly captures the domaine itself: unshowy, deeply rooted and far more interesting than its modest profile might suggest.