Stéphane Tissot

The Climb

At Beaune, Stéphane Tissot picked up the discipline that still defines the work: close observation, exact timing, and a respect for what a site can and cannot give. That training reads less like a starting point than a technical foundation, one that links vineyard decisions to cellar decisions and keeps the emphasis on expression over force. The result is a style built on attention, where farming and vinification are treated as the same craft in different registers. Since 1989, Stéphane Tissot has been winemaker at Bénédicte et Stéphane Tissot, in Montigny-lès-Arsures, France. The work has stayed centered on producing wines that remain rooted in place, with patience and restraint carrying more weight than intervention.

Today

The role remains winemaker, and the shift toward biodynamic work came from a practical reading of vineyard and cellar conditions. Stéphane Tissot put it plainly: he saw a problem, and that led him toward a healthier way of growing grapes and making wine. That framing keeps biodynamics grounded in use rather than slogan; it is presented as a working response to what the vines and the cellar demanded.

Signature

The signature wines — Les Bruyères, La Mailloche, Chateau Chalon, Les Graviers, and Chardonnay »Les Bruyères« — suggest a cellar organized around distinct sites and clear identities. Rather than pressing everything into a single house style, Stéphane Tissot’s range points to variation handled with discipline, where each name carries its own weight and the work is measured by how well it holds nuance.

In Their Words “Our biodynamic work in the vineyards gives us pleasure and enables us to vinify our wines in a natural way that reflects our terroirs and our work, far from the industrial techniques that banalize wine.” “I realised there was a problem, and that’s what encouraged me to move towards a healthier way of growing grapes and making wine.”