Pierrick Laroche

Pierrick Laroche runs Domaine des Hâtes at Maligny, in the north-west corner of Chablis. His father built the estate up from the 1970s, gradually gaining planting rights and adding parcels, while selling the fruit to La Chablisienne. Pierrick made the first vintage under his own name in 2010, to immediate acclaim.

He took a degree in oenology at Beaune and then travelled, taking internships around the wine world before coming home to farm the family vineyards himself. The estate now runs to 33 hectares: twelve of Petit Chablis, twelve of Chablis, a hectare of Chablis Les Châtillons, and premier cru holdings in Butteaux and Fourchaume L'Homme Mort, with Beauroy, Vau de Vey and Grand Cru Bougros bottled under a small négoce operation he began in 2016.

The cellars are cut into the hillside in the village and built over several levels, so most of the work is done by gravity. Vinification is classic Chablis: malolactic for everything and ageing in stainless steel, with a small portion of the premier and grand cru wines raised in used barrels and blended back before bottling. His oldest plot is Les Châtillons, planted in the early 1970s behind the hill of Grand Crus, and it gets a touch of barrel too. Farming is sustainable, with grass between the rows controlled by ploughing. About 8,000 dozen a year.