By Stokkebye

French oak before the first pour

French wooden barrels set the pace for Jacob Stokkebye, winemaker and co-founder at By Stokkebye in Bovense, Nyborg. He has held that station since 2009, when the first 1,000 vines went into the ground near Nyborg, and the work still reads through the older grammar he chooses to keep close. “We make wine the way they did 60-70 years ago, in French wooden barrels. We do things the way they were done back then.”

Stokkebye came to the vineyard through service, palate, and exact timing. In 1989 he began as co-founder of the Danish Sommelier Association, then worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in France and later as private chef at the Royal Family’s wine chateau in Cahors. At By Stokkebye, that formation shows less as polish than as restraint: the glass is handled with discipline, the tasting stays deliberate, and the cellar keeps its attention on texture before display. His wife, Helle Stokkebye Johansen, has described the estate as a family project that grew from his boyhood dream. The names in the bottles stay close to that house language too, with Liva, Frank, and Stella among Jacob’s signature wines.

Pinot Noir, Solaris, and older methods

The vineyard works organically on Funen, with estate fruit grown around Bovense and a cellar program built around sparkling, white, and fortified wines. Pinot Noir carries the sparkling work, made by the traditional method, with secondary fermentation in bottle. Solaris gives the white program its northern line. Rondo is also part of the planting. The site is described through calcareous, mineral-rich soils, a useful detail in a country where viticulture still asks for conviction from the grower.

Scale matters here because it keeps the hand visible. By Stokkebye produces around 20,000–25,000 bottles annually, from a family vineyard that includes 17,000 vines across approximately 28 hectares. Grapes are hand-picked, then the barrel program returns to French oak rather than a louder technological signature. For fortified wine, the house uses the port method, stopping fermentation with fine grape brandy before aging for 4 months in 9-liter sherry oak casks. Jacob’s other line is equally plain: “We try to use as little machinery and electricity as we can.”

The vineyard room on Funen

The place sits in Bovense, a small village near Nyborg, with the vineyard held among undulating green fields and the cellar close enough to the tasting room that the method does not feel abstract. This is not a large estate performance. It is a small, high-end family vineyard, conversational in tempo, with organic wines poured beside Nordic caviar and truffle delicacies when the tasting calls for them.

The room carries the same discipline as the cellar. Glasses arrive without rush. The caviar belongs beside the wines not as ornament, but as another register of texture, salt, fat, and restraint. Outside, Funen’s green fields keep the frame quiet; inside, the barrel, the bottle, and the pass from hand to hand make the work legible.