100% Chardonnay

Food pairings: Chicken stew, grilled chicken fillets, crab, steamed prawns, baked or raw fish, fish stew, pâtés and terrines, and cheeses such as Camembert, Brie, Gruyère and Gouda.

Winemaking: The grapes are harvested by hand and sorted three times, twice in the vineyard and once on a sorting table. They are pressed on arrival and fermented at low temperature with natural yeasts only, the fermentation starting in tank before the wine is moved into barrels. It is aged for 12 months in French oak barrels from the Allier and Bertranges forests, 15% of them new.

Vineyards and terroir: Les Terrasses de Bievaux lie on the northern heights of Santenay, on the Bievaux climat, whose name comes from a nearby spring. After phylloxera the steep hillside was abandoned, until Justin's grandfather replanted it in 1986. Rare for Burgundy, the slope is terraced into six small parcels. High up and very steep, it has thin soil over limestone marls, a refreshing microclimate from the nearby woods and a southwest exposure that the terraces accentuate, bringing structure and concentration. The vines are about 30 years old, Guyot pruned and carefully worked by hand.

Family and history: The Girardin family's roots in Burgundy go back to 1570, and the family turned to winemaking after the Second World War. In the late 1950s and 1960s Jean Girardin acquired parcels on Santenay's best terroirs, and Justin's parents, Jacques and Valérie, expanded into Chassagne-Montrachet, Pommard and Savigny-lès-Beaune. Justin joined the estate in 2013 and took over in 2017, the 13th generation at its head.

In the pictures: Justin Girardin among the barrels, and at work in the estate's barrel cellar (photos courtesy of Domaine Justin Girardin).