Renowned Belgian photographer and wine enthusiast Bernard Van Berg changed the course of his life in the early 2000s, settling in Meursault with his wife Judith to devote himself to winemaking. There, he took over a two-hectare vineyard planted with Chardonnay, Aligoté, Pinot Noir and Gamay, including vines dating back to 1950. The vineyard has been farmed organically, certified since 2008, without fertilisers or plant protection products. The vines are tended like a small garden, with the soils ploughed by horse. Naturally, yields are extremely low. The same natural approach continues in the winery, where there is no destemming, no added yeasts or enriching, and sulphur additions are kept to an absolute minimum. The wines are aged in new casks.

Step into the realm of legend with Bernard Van Berg. Today, the Belgian couple have now retired and no further wines are being produced. The vines are now farmed by the renowned Les Jardins Vivants estate, under the direction of Tino Kuban. A former acclaimed photographer, Bernard Van Berg settled in Meursault to devote himself to his passion for wine. After producing a number of experimental cuvées, he released this sparkling white in 2012, made exclusively from Aligoté grown on one of Meursault’s most celebrated Premier Crus, Les Gouttes d’Or. The site lies to the south-west of the village, on the slopes of Creux Saint-Antoine, where vines were first planted in 1985. The soil is tended with painstaking care, respecting the living ecosystem as though it were a small garden. The vines are stake-trained and cultivated without chemical inputs. Yields are exceptionally low, at around 10 hl/ha. Production is correspondingly tiny, with fewer than 300 bottles produced, and in some vintages only a few dozen.