It's opposites week in the Pinot Noir world: an Oregon vintner has purchased Grand Cru vineyard blocks in Burgundy, not the other way around.
Grace Evenstad, owner of Domaine Serene in Willamette Valley, bought Domaine Christian Confuron et fils in Vougeot for an undisclosed amount. There is no winery building in the deal, but there are 15 acres of vineyards including grand cru parcels in Bonnes Mares and Clos de Vougeot, premier cru parcels in Chambolle-Musigny and Nuits-Saint-Georges, and village blocks in Comblanchien, Gilly-lès-Cîteaux and Premeaux-Prissey.
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This is the second purchase in Burgundy for Evenstad. In 2015, she and her husband Ken (who died in 2020) bought Château de la Crée in Santenay; that came with a pink-colored 15th-Century estate and 25 acres of vineyard blocks, including some premier cru, spread around the Côte d'Or.
Burgundy is notoriously difficult for outsiders to buy into, especially grand cru blocks, which are often just a few vines in parcels that have been subdivided by inheritance laws for generations. Evenstad said this deal was possible because of how well she and her company have handled the Château de la Crée purchase.
"We've been here for six years now," Evenstad told Wine-Searcher on an authentically poor wifi connection from Burgundy. "Everything that happens in Burgundy happens because you know somebody and they trust you. After six years that we have been in the community, they know we're going to take care of it. They know we're going to make good wine from it. They know we're upright people."
Grace and Ken Evenstad founded Domaine Serene in 1989, moving from Minnesota to buy a 42-acre hilltop estate that had just been logged. Domaine Serene was one of the most ambitious Oregon wineries in the 1990s and has been rewarded with critical acclaim. A press release claims the winery has received 130 95-point-and-above scores.
The Evenstads got into the wine business because of their love of Burgundy, and Grace said that even during their years of building up Domaine Serene they continued to visit Burgundy often. Today they sell most of the wines they produce in Santenay through their tasting room and through a unique French-wine-only wine club.
Small production
That's also the plan for the new grand cru wines. Evenstad said they won't have enough of each wine to put them into retail distribution.
"The parcels that we have in the vineyards are so small," Evenstad said. "We might have 70 cases of a wine or 150 cases of a wine. You can't go into distribution with that for 50 states."
An exception are Château de la Crée wines from Montagny, which is made from purchased fruit. They also have a Côte de Beaune red in stores called Knights Templar.
Evenstad said that she has learned from customers visiting Domaine Serene that most Americans are unfamiliar with Burgundy. (Editorial comment here: people either know a lot, or very little, and not many people are in between.)
"We have helped Santenay to more prominence," Evenstad said. "We're selling our Santenay wines in our tasting room at Domaine Serene. We have club members who are just French wine members. We are teaching people in America about Burgundy. Burgundy is tricky. It's been an educational experience. I think it's because we have done well in Santenay that we were able to buy in Côte de Nuits."
When asked the secret of how one purchases grand cru vineyard parcels, Evenstad said: "There are brokers that you can notify if you're interested in buying properties. When they come up, sometimes you hear about it and sometimes you don't. Most of the time you have to know somebody who knows somebody.
"We've been here six years. We know somebodies now."
