【One of the must-try wineries in your lifetime】

ZTF403-Maison Leroy Beaujolais Villages Primeur 2023

$395/btl

Founded in 1868 by François Leroy, Maison Leroy was one of the leading wine merchants in the Burgundy region. In 1919, François Leroy's grandson, Henri Leroy, joined Maison Leroy. He meticulously selected and collected numerous rare red and white wines from the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits regions of Burgundy. Their selection criteria focused on the wines' aging potential. Maison Leroy specializes in high-quality wines with aging potential, and their collection is said to number as many as 2.8 million bottles from different vintages, making it practically a museum of Burgundy wines.

Henri's daughter, Lalou Bize-Leroy, commonly known as Madame Leroy, joined Maison Leroy in 1955 and became the group's chairperson in 1971. Maison Leroy maintains extremely stringent selection criteria for its wines, employing a rigorous blind tasting process. Maison Leroy has a well-known tradition of hosting wine tasting dinners. In the 1960s, large-scale wine tastings were still rare. Starting in 1966, Madame Leroy began inviting elites from various fields to her Domaine d’Auvenay home for wine tasting dinners, a very rare and unique initiative at the time. At these tastings, a dazzling array of Burgundy wines could be seen, lined up in a row. This grand and impressive setting facilitated exchange and showcased Maison Leroy's influence in the wine world.

Maison Leroy does not own its own vineyards. Instead, it purchases grapes or grape juice from other estates, then produces its own wines for sale; or it directly buys high-quality, undated wines from other wineries, ages them, and then labels them for sale. Before the 20th century, this was actually quite common practice in Burgundy; wineries rarely bottled and sold their own wines. Top wineries would sell their wines to wineries like Maison Leroy, who would then bottle and label them for sale. It wasn't until after World War II that more and more wineries began bottling their own wines, and later, laws mandated that wineries be responsible for bottling.