Kei Shiogai

Kei Shiogai came to wine the long way round: a sommelier from Tokyo who flew to France in 2013 to learn winemaking — the BPREA in Beaune, then oenology in Dijon, learning French as he went — and worked his way through cellars of the first rank: Philippe Pacalet from 2014, Domaine Armand Rousseau in 2019, Domaine Jean-Marc Roulot in 2020. His own label began as a side project in 2020, with grapes from Pommard and Gevrey-Chambertin; the first bottles were sold in 2021, from a small cellar on the outskirts of Beaune.

The method is exacting and nearly invisible. Fruit bought under year-to-year agreements from growers he has known for over a decade, picked — where the contract allows — by his own team, and earlier than most. Whole bunches, always: he never destems. Long three-week fermentations in a handful of small steel tanks, whites fermented in barrel, an élevage of up to eighteen months tasted appellation by appellation. Around ten thousand bottles a year, across sixteen cuvées from Bourgogne to grand cru. Even the harvest is an allocation: the picking team is drawn from his own collectors, who work the rows for the right to buy. Labels carry the historic arms of each appellation — the place given precedence over the maker.

He avoids photographs and lets the scarcity speak. This cellar, which keeps most of its own holdings unlisted, recognises the instinct. Discretion is not a lack of information. It is a decision about which information matters.