It’s tough starting any venture from scratch, let alone a Burgundy domaine. But this is precisely what Camille Thiriet has done, starting as a négociant and building a domaine of six hectares in just six vintages (Thiriet’s first vintage was in 2016). But that’s not all this young grower has achieved. With her partner, Canadian-born winemaker Matt Chittick, Thiriet is now putting the terroirs of the two most southerly villages of the Côte de Nuits back on the fine wine map. These are two of Burgundy’s least-known villages: Corgoloin (estate) and Comblanchien (négociant), the first you drive past as you head north from the hill of Corton.

Matt and Camille’s passion is immediately obvious, and it has attracted support from locals like Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac, Nicolas Potel and, even more amazingly, Bernard Noblet, retired Cellar Master of Domaine de la Romanée Conti. All have helped mentor this new estate. Matt and Camille are also close with the (soon-to-be retired) Didier Fornerol, arguably the finest estate of the Côte de Nuits-Villages.

The estate vines are all in Corgoloin, on the east and southeast-facing slopes and the same rocky, limestone and clay soils of the more famous villages to the north. Little wonder then that Camille Thiriet describes this village as “...amazing, underrated and unknown”. 

Camille and Matt’s work in the vines reflects the blueprint of Burgundy’s current ‘Golden Generation’—the farming follows organic principles, and there are two horses (Obelix and Véga) used for some of the cultivation work. In their cellar, one in Comblanchien and now a second in Corgoloin, you will taste wines of great purity and freshness; the whites crunchy and saline and the reds loaded with candied red fruits, nettle and spice. Delicacy is the goal here; every fermenter is gently foot trodden with the aim being to infuse, rather than to extract. The use of new oak is capped at around 20% and the wines are bottled unfiltered with just a touch of sulphur dioxide. 

The wines labelled as "Maison C. Thiriet" are négociant wines, mostly from Comblanchien, while those that are labelled "Domaine Camille Thiriet" are from estate vines in Corgoloin. A young producer striving for the highest quality, seeking to produce pure, perfumed, digestible wines and hoping to help reveal unknown terroirs to the world of Burgundy; it’s little wonder that we worked so hard to get an allocation from Domaine Camille Thiriet. They may not be that well known (yet), but just like those other pioneers we have mentioned above, fame is not far away.