Our producer: Les Horées

Catharina Sadde is a trained chef and has worked in renowned restaurants in Berlin and on Sylt for some time. She discovered her love for wine through a part-time job in the wine trade during her studies. As a result, she first did an internship at Schäfer-Fröhlich an der Nahe, then she went to Domaine Chevrot in Burgundy. After completing her master's degree in oenology, she was accepted for an internship at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Other stations included Drouhin, Comtes de Vogüé and Domaine Marquis d'Angerville, where she worked as a field manager and dealt intensively with the topic of biodynamic vineyard care (which plays a very important role on her own winery). She had also been Cecile Tremblay's right-hand woman in Vosne-Romanée for several years when she was offered to buy a small plot of vineyards in Beaune in 2018. Catharina took this opportunity and founded the Domaine "Les Horées" with her husband Guilhem. When she was offered more vineyards in 2019, she took the final leap into self-employment and they are now the proud owner of 1.3 hectares.

The 1.3 hectares of vineyards are spread over the municipalities of Beaune, Pommard and Volnay. These sites are cultivated biologically dynamically and completely by hand. The cellar for the first vinification of the grapes was set up in Pommard, then it moved to Beaune for the 2021 harvest. A few small new wooden cuves for fermenting the grapes, a basket press, plus various barriques of the best origin, that's all it takes. Catharina describes her way of working as "low intervention", her wines should represent their origin honestly and unvarnished, starting with the Bourgogne Aligoté and the Coteaux Bourguignon (a blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir) to her Beaune "LE Prévolles". The complex, purely manual and natural vineyard care is the basis for fully ripe and healthy grapes. Already in the vineyard, these are meticulously sorted out during the harvest. Pinot Noir and Gamay are only partially destemmed, the middle stalk of the grape is carefully cut out by hand to create individual small grapes. These then ferment in an open vat on their own yeasts. Here Catharina prefers a gentle washing over of the must, supported by a few pigages with her feet. During the entire vinification, Catharina deliberately avoids adding sulfur. She knows about the power of her own wild yeasts, which are ultimately responsible for the minerality and complexity of the wines. The wines are aged exclusively in used barrique barrels, where the wines should mature and develop without taking on a noticeable aroma of wood. Catharina loves wines that are as natural as possible but also clean and therefore only slightly sulphurizes them after malolactic fermentation. It is bottled without filtration, and she is meticulous when it comes to choosing her corks. These come from old cork oaks from a nature park near Lisbon and are particularly hard and dense and are only treated with beeswax on the outside. Les Horées does not have any famous 1er Cru or Grand Cru sites, and yet the wines radiate something very special. They are extremely dense and exude an almost stunning wealth of aromas. Although Catharina ferments on the whole grapes, i.e. with the stems, the tannins in her wines are absolutely silky and very fine-grained. She achieves this by cutting out the thick central rib of each grape in a laborious manual process. Their wines have a sensually deep and ripe fruit and an intoxicating play of aromas. Even their supposedly simple Bourgogne offers a quality that is not expected in these locations, perhaps not even thought possible.

Due to the small quantities and the very high demand, we do not offer Les Horrées wines in our web shop.

We ask for your understanding that these wines are primarily reserved for our regular customers in Switzerland and gastronomy. If you are interested, please send us an email.