Édouard Labet

Édouard Labet manages the family estates Château de la Tour and Domaine Pierre Labet in Burgundy, France, a role he has held since 2018 alongside his father, François Labet. He is a sixth-generation winemaker in a family involved in viticulture since 1492, carrying forward a long line of inherited vineyard and cellar work. His position is both operational and patrimonial, rooted in holdings shaped by family continuity and the historic Clos de Vougeot. At Château de la Tour, the work centers on grand cru wines from the enclosed site of Clos de Vougeot. The estate’s Clos-Vougeot Vieilles Vignes comes from the oldest vines, planted in 1910, and a third cuvée, Hommage à Jean Morin, has been released only in exceptional vintages since 2010. These bottlings reflect a practice built around old vines, careful picking, and precise selection within the historic clos. Domaine Pierre Labet broadens the family’s range with villages and premier cru appellation wines from Meursault north to Gevrey-Chambertin. Across both domaines, the wines are made in the historic cellars at the home winery and are whole-bunch vinified, giving fruit from different sites a shared cellar approach. The work links farming and cellar decisions as parts of the same craft rather than separate stages. Labet uses organic farming and biodynamic practices. In the vineyard, he prefers pruning rather than green harvesting to help grapes ripen properly, and he relies on hand harvesting and hand selection to preserve grape quality. In the cellar, he uses indigenous yeasts, whole-cluster fermentation, no racking after malolactic fermentation, and no filtration before bottling. For the whites at Domaine Pierre Labet, he keeps all the lees and uses a small amount of SO2 after pressing. He describes the approach as a move from a more natural, slightly oxidative style toward one based more on reduction and lees aging. Estate management is shared between father and son, with continuity carried through repeated decisions in farming, picking, preservation, and measured adjustment. The family line remains central to the work, but so does active management of each vintage. In a challenging season under heavy mildew pressure, Labet stayed organic in Clos de Vougeot while using 23 sprays. That choice reflects the broader discipline of the estates, where tradition is maintained through practical decisions in the vineyard and cellar. His work is defined by the same elements across both properties: Clos de Vougeot, old-vine cuvées, Beaune-based family holdings, whole-bunch vinification, and careful handling of each parcel. Through these estates, Édouard Labet continues a family viticultural history by managing the inherited ground, the wines made from it, and the methods used to preserve quality from vineyard to bottle.