A Tale of Two Vineyards

From the storied slopes of Burgundy to the windswept hills of Languedoc, Dominic Rippon follows the Delaunay family’s remarkable journey of reinvention and the renaissance of their wines..

Every wine region tells its own story. But beyond grape varieties and appellations, it’s the landscape, traditions, and even the cadence of local life that give each one its soul. In France, no two regions better embody that contrast than Burgundy and Languedoc-one is refined and meticulous, while the other is wild and sun-drenched.

Burgundy’s fame was forged in the cloisters of medieval monks, whose patient work mapped and classified its hallowed vineyard plots. Its Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs are paragons of precision, shaped by a cool, semi-continental climate. Languedoc, by contrast, was born in rebellion: a land of scattered vines and free spirits, its modern wine culture rising from the embers of the 1907 Winegrowers’ Revolt. The region’s wines, like its people, have always worn their independence proudly.

A fresh start in the south

That rebellious energy was part of what drew Burgundian winemaking couple Catherine and Laurent Delaunay south in 1995. Only a few years earlier, Laurent had returned from California’s Napa Valley to find his father ailing and the family’s ancestral estate, Edouard Delaunay, in crisis. When the winery and trading name had to be sold, the young couple chose to start anew, far from Burgundy’s cloisters, beneath the endless skies of Languedoc.
Inspired by California’s entrepreneurial spirit, they set up a small négociant business near Carcassonne, buying wines from top local growers and crafting varietal bottlings of Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah. The label they created, Les Jamelles, would grow to become one of southern France’s most successful and trusted wine brands.

A decade later, in 2005, Catherine and Laurent grew their activity, acquiring Abbotts, a boutique winery in the village of Marseillette. Founded by an adventurous Australian couple, it had built a reputation for modern varietal wines. Abbotts gradually evolved into Abbotts & Delaunay, with a broader focus on making authentic wines from regional appellations such as Minervois, Corbières and Côtes du Roussillon.

Until 2014, the Delaunays crafted their wines exclusively from grapes and juice bought from partner growers in the region, but that changed with the purchase of Domaine de la Métairie d’Alon, an organic 25-hectare estate in the Upper Aude Valley, in the shadow of the towering Pyrenees. The domaine was previously owned by pioneering winemaker Jean-Louis Denois, a Champenois who first planted Burgundian varieties here in the 1980s, so it quickly became a spiritual southern home for the Delaunays.

At altitudes reaching 400 metres, cool nights and crisp mountain air coax subtlety and finesse from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes, respectively producing oaked whites from the Limoux appellation and IGP reds that can resemble ripe, cherry-scented ringers for fine red burgundy.

Among the vines

Here, on a clear September morning, I met Jeanne Delaunay, Catherine and Laurent’s daughter. Jeanne picked her first Languedoc vintage here in 2023 and now leads the family’s operations in the south, combining an affection for the region with a deep attachment to the family’s Burgundian roots.
“The soils here are surprisingly similar to those in the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune,” she said, surveying a parcel of Pinot Noir on the Montagne d’Alon. “You can see we haven’t picked yet in Burgundy, much further north, the harvest is almost finished.”

The view was spectacular, sunlight glancing off the vines, the Pyrenees hazy in the distance – the sort of place you could easily spend a lazy afternoon among the vines. But Jeanne’s day was far from over. After a tasting and an al fresco casse-croûte lunch, I joined her team in the western reaches of the nearby Corbières appellation, clipping bunches of Grenache Blanc at Domaine de la Lause, the family’s latest vineyard acquisition. Bought in 2019, this 10-hectare property in the beautiful Dagne Valley is planted with ten different grape varieties across 20 tiny plots, making both red and white AOP Corbières.

“In the beginning, our workers were perplexed,” Jeanne told me, as she carefully placed grapes into a small bucket. “They weren’t used to the Burgundian practices of bunch thinning in the vineyards and grape sorting in the winery, both of which sacrifice quantity for quality. But once they saw the results, they were sold.” This philosophy of precision, patience, and respect for terroir is now shaping a new wave of single-vineyard bottlings at Abbotts & Delaunay: high-end wines made from carefully selected vineyard sites across the region – each one farmed by a dedicated partner grower. The finest of these are the delicious new white Saint-Chinian ‘La Clarière and red Pic Saint-Loup ‘Sous La Falaise. Jeanne speaks affectionately about her ongoing adventures with her father, Laurent, admitting that the highlight of her work is the time they spend scouring the region’s vineyards together, searching for new sites capable of making outstanding wines.

“Through all of these cuvées,” she says, “I seek to offer a pure and honest vision of Languedoc – where every wine tells the story of its place.”

Full circle

Back in Nuits-Saint-Georges, fate offered the Delaunays one final reward in 2017, when they were able to buy back the Edouard Delaunay estate and the family name, which had been sold more than two decades earlier. Today, it once again ranks among Burgundy’s most respected producers, making a range of fine burgundies from village-level Puligny-Montrachet all the way through to Grand Cru Charmes-Chambertin.

It’s a story as rare as it is inspiring, of a family who left Burgundy in search of new horizons, found renewal in Languedoc, and returned to their roots stronger than ever. Between the precision of the north and the warmth of the south, the Delaunays have forged something entirely their own: a union of two great French wine traditions, bound by resilience, vision, and an unshakable sense of place.

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Lead photo credit : ABBOTTSETDELAUNAY-VIN-PORTRAIT-VIGNOBLE-MAGRIE-2023-10-114CR A&D official