At the head of a pretty 7.5 hectare estate located between the Côte de Beaune and the Côte Chalonnaise, the 55-year-old winemaker Jean-Yves Devevey displays the smile of those who have had it all. “I have not always been kind”, he admits in his cellar in Demigny (Saône-et-Loire), where he vinifies his wines. It is because he had to fight to get there, having taken an atypical path, as Burgundy likes them. And it is exemplary of this new Burgundy, unknown and at low prices.
Initially, he only had a family vineyard, fragile, 3.5 hectares, located on complicated soils of the plain, which had to be torn up. So how do you get out of it when your only capital is your two arms and those of your father and uncle? “I bought vines that nobody wanted, either because they were too old or because they were not well maintained. I didn’t have king pieces and I borrowed from the bank ”, says the winemaker.
It was quite easy for him to recover vines classified as rully in the Côte Chalonnaise. But he wanted to go further and tackle the Côte de Beaune, where the hectare is much more expensive. With the support of British investors, Jean-Yves Devevey succeeded in 1999 in acquiring a small plot of 51.67 acres of Beaune. “At the time, the hectare was worth around 300,000 euros”, he specifies.
Negotiating to better bounce back
Its range is expanding, but making wine from its own land is not enough to keep it going. He became a merchant in 2002, having bought grapes from other winegrowers that he vinified, aged and bottled in his name. But not just any grapes. “I only made about twenty pieces in trade [une pièce, en Bourgogne, correspond à un fût de 228 litres], but, as it was about Meursault, [de] chassagne-montrachet or [de] volnay premier crus – only wines with high added value – it changed my life ”, he admits.
Jean-Yves Devevey was then able to build a cellar adapted to his way of working, always more precise. And when he had finished paying it, in 2014, he took a confusing path: stop trading to focus again on his own vines, which he wanted to convert to organic farming, then biodynamic. Today, “The winegrower of the inter-rib”, as he likes to define himself, is finally recognized for his small appellations with a strong identity, which do not go unnoticed by amateurs. Its cuvée “Champs Perdrix 2015”, in Hautes-Côtes-de-Beaune and at 19 euros, now represents one of the models of its appellation.