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Chanson Père et Fils on why Côte Chalonnaise is just ‘the beginning’

03 December 2025 By Arabella Mileham

The new CEO of Chanson Père et Fils, Thierry Berger, who joined the company at the end of August talks to db about its plans for the new Côte Chalonnaise vineyards, the delicate questions of pricing on the back of yields down 60%. Arabella Mileham reports.

It’s been an eventful few years for Chanson Père et Fils, the long-established Burgundy négociant house perhaps as well known for its core domaine on the Côte de Beaune (25ha of that Beaune premiers crus) as for its négociant business. However, two years ago it more than doubled its vineyard holdings with the purchase of land in the Côte Chalonnaise and effectively realigned its business mode around this.

Speaking to the drinks business last week, Thierry Berger, the new chief executive office who took over the role from Vincent Avenel at the end of August, outlined his priorities for the next phase of the Bollinger-owned company’s development.

The Château d’Etroyes, a Côte Chalonnaise domaine with 50ha of vineyards around Mercurey and Rully (including 10 hectares of Premier Cru and two monopoles), back in 2023 was acquired primarily to rebalance the negoces business and concentrate more on the domain activity. And as Theirry Berger, the new head of Chanson Père et Fils explains, it has allowed Chanson to develop a more accessible range for the price, which can access new markets and new opportunities, without affecting sales of its Premier and Grand Cru wines from the Côte de Beaune.

“We have the higher wines from the Côte de Beaune and the more accessible from Côte Chalonnaise. This is good strategy for us, as we can get new markets with Côte Chalonnaise, for example, by the glass, as we don’t serve the Premier Cru by the glass,” he said.

It should also allow Chanson to gain new markets at the entry level and use those as a springboard to propose its fine wines, according to Berger.

So far, the company has introduced new wines from Mercury, a Premier Cru plus a red and a white and a red and white from Rully – the latter having launched with the 2024 vintage.

And it is already having an effect – this year the company sold 70,000 more bottles than last year “and we have a nice progression plan to increase that to 120,000 more bottles in 2026,” Berger said. “That is important for us to develop the group.”

While the plans for the Côte Chalonnaise are only just beginning, but the aim is to become of the biggest producers in Mercurey and build its reputation.

“The challenge is to be very well-known in our Côte Chalonnaise. We know Chanson for the Côte de Beaune, for Premier Cru and Grand Cru, but we don’t know it for the Côte Chalonnaise. We need to develop this fame of Chanson in Mercurey, the Mercurey premier cru Le Clos l’Evêque, which is the probably the best premier cri in Mercurey,” he said.

Although currently the 6.3ha Mercurey premier cru Le Clos l’Evêque, currently only produces red wine from its 5.6ha, the team planted 1.2ha of Chardonnay last year with the view to seeing the first vintage in 2027 or 2028.

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“The beginning”

However, as Berger argues, at the moment, the vineyard isn’t productive enough “and we have to renew it completely and fast”.

Currently, the estate yields around 15hl/ha, but the target is to ramp this up to around 45hl/ha on average, according to export manager Vincent Wallays. “That would be perfect, because in terms of the quality, it’s here, there’s no dilution, and in terms of amount of bottle produced, that would be good”, he said. He a likens it to the classic real estate strategy of buying the worst house on the best street and renovating it. “I like to say it’s we’re buying in the neighbourhood we wanted the house. The condition was not there, but there is lots of room for improvement.”

To effect this, the castle itself has been sold in the last few weeks, and the team has embarked on a big ten-year replanting process to renew the vineyards. They will use five or six different clones of Pinot Noir, with around 2-3ha planted each year. It is, he notes, a big challenge that requires investment, but “quality starts in the production in the vineyard and not in the cellar”.

Outside of the Côte Chalonnaise, Chanson Père et Fils is eyeing up other avenues for growth.

“We need to develop other ranges from trading (ie through the negociant business) in Chablis, in the Maconnais and in Côte de Nuit, with Nuits St Geroge, and Gevry Chambertin,” Berger nods.

The company was rumoured to be in the running to buy William Fèvre in Chablis, only to be beaten to it by Domaines Barons de Rothschild (DBR Lafite), and although expansion in Chablis is still potentially on the cards – Berger confirms that it “should be a priority” – they’ve currently got plenty to be getting on with. “I hope we will invest in Chablis in the future, but maybe in three or four years, not quite yet.”