IN THE VINEYARD
Letting the Vines Lead
There is no certification logo on the back label of an Alvina Pernot bottle. Alvina and Philippe have, since the founding vintage, declined to file for organic or biodynamic certification, on the grounds that the right answer changes with the year. What guides the work in the vines is bon sens paysan, not a logo: the season is read first, then the decision is made.
In a forgiving season, the work runs almost entirely organic, with copper and sulphur sprays the only inputs the vines see, sometimes with as few as ten treatment passes across the year. In a wetter, more difficult one, the early treatments may turn conventional, with a switch back to organic later in the season once disease pressure has eased. Copper-based treatments repeated many times across a wet year can compact the soils and damage the rows more than a smaller number of conventional preventative passes spaced wider apart.
The reasoning is firmly preventative rather than curative, with the first applications timed early enough that disease has no chance to settle and the doses scaled back wherever the season permits. Alvina and Philippe trust their own judgement more than they trust a logo.
Pruning, and the Quiet Months
Most of the pruning is Almerindo’s work. He joined Alvina and Philippe after a long career at Domaine Paul Pernot, and his hands have known these specific vines for decades. Done well, the work is more than the shape it gives the plant: pruning late, and at the right moment, can delay budbreak by a few days, which is sometimes the difference between a parcel that survives a spring frost and one that does not. Alvina and Philippe help where they can. The vines are Almerindo’s to read, and they trust him completely.
Alvina’s father does the ploughing. It is the only part of the new domaine he takes on, on his own tractor and in his own time. He says little about it. Alvina knows what it means.
Frost, and the Spring Vigil
Burgundy’s spring frosts are an annual gamble. An early-season cold snap, when the bud is still tight, is a loss Alvina and Philippe will accept rather than fight: ten or fifteen per cent of a crop is a reasonable price for not setting a hillside alight. A frost in mid- to late April, after budbreak, is a different matter. At that point the entire crop is at risk, and the candles come out, lit precisely where the cold air pools to raise the temperature just enough to carry the buds through.
We do it because it is necessary, and when we can do without, we do without.
The work is done by hand, often in the small hours, the pale light of paraffin flames moving along the rows.
Harvesting Early
Everything in the cellar follows the same principle: let the terroir speak, not the hand of the vigneron. The work in the vineyard exists to make that possible, and the decision that matters most is when to pick.
Alvina and Philippe pick consistently earlier than Domaine Paul Pernot, by three to five days on identically sited parcels, and they have done so since the founding vintage. The warming climate of the last twenty years is part of the reason, but only part. The deeper reason is that an earlier pick preserves the freshness, the natural acidity and the precision that allow each parcel to come through clearly in the glass. A late-picked Puligny tells you about ripeness. An early-picked one tells you about place.
The order of picking follows the parcels, not the calendar. The best-placed parcels, with the oldest and lowest-yielding vines, tend to come in first, with the Grands Crus and the well-exposed Premier Crus often leading the harvest. Younger plantings and more heavily-loaded vines ripen later. Philippe and Alvina watch the parcels closely and decide week by week.
The fruit is carried in small caisses. Bunches travel intact, the juice does not begin to oxidise on the way to the press, and the cellar work that follows can dispense with débourbage and hold sulphur back through the early ferments. The vineyard and the cellar are part of the same long sentence: how the fruit is picked and how it travels in the first hour after the cut both shape what is possible later in the year.
As the summers have warmed, the picking has moved earlier. The classique bourguignon vintage profile that Philippe describes as the classic of thirty years ago has become a rare thing.
From the 2026 vintage, a small new parcel of Le Trézin will join the range, planted in 2023 and sitting at the very top of the village slope, between 350 and 400 metres of altitude, the highest vines in the appellation, on a cool, late-ripening exposure. As the climate continues to warm, parcels at this elevation are the ones to watch.
Also joining from the 2026 vintage: Volnay 1er Cru Carelle sous la Chapelle. From 2027, Meursault Blagny 1er Cru La Pièce sous le Bois becomes a domaine plot, alongside Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ Canet and a new Bourgogne Côte d’Or, Les Petits Champ Canet.
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