Domaine Leroux tasting

“Biodynamic winemaking is a way of life,” according to Benjamin Leroux. And, the young Burgundian winemaker could have added, I have the sore back to show for it. Leroux, the 30-something whizz who heads up the Comte Armand vineyard in the village of Pommard, was explaining to a packed audience in Kelly’s Hotel in Rosslare, Co Wexford, what it takes to create a fine Burgundy using the holistic farming principles set up by Rudolph Steiner almost 90 years ago.

Comte Armand’s conversion to biodynamic farming is part of a growing trend, said Leroux. Many French vineyards want to dispense with chemicals and allow vines to reach their potential in concert with nature and the lunar cycle. But there is a price and the 2008 vintage, beset by bad weather, meant Leroux and his team had to treat the vines more often to stave off rot and ruin.

Leroux was in Kelly’s to take part in the hotel’s wine-tasting week, a biannual event (the next one will be in the autumn) in which owner and oenophile Bill Kelly invites leading winegrowers to lead tutored tastings of their wines. Guests thus get a chance to sample wines of the calibre of Comte Armand’s premier-cru flagship, the Clos des Epeneaux, a silky ambassador for Pommard’s relatively beefy take on Pinot Noir.

The personable Leroux has other plots to cultivate including small parcels in nearby Auxey-Duresses, Meursault and Volnay. While Epeneaux ranks at the top of the Pommard tree and is priced accordingly (ditto the Meursault), these other wines, particularly the Auxey-Duresses white and red from the 2006 vintage scored well in the bangs-per-buck category, as did his basic village Volnay and the 2002 Volnay premier cru Fremiets. Expect to pay from €30 up.Kelly’s Hotel stocks Comte Armand wines, as do Berry Brothers Rudd.