Meet Lalou Bize-Leroy: The "Queen of Burgundy" and Founder of Domaine Leroy
This interview has been edited for clarity and was featured in the October 4, 2023 of Merobebe. Header image courtesy of Jeannie Cho Lee.
Today, we’re staying in Burgundy to learn about the "Queen of Burgundy" who not only helped to make Domaine de la Romanée-Conti what it is today, but also ushered in an era of biodynamic farming and raised the quality of wines in Burgundy.
Marcelle, known as Lalou, was born in 1932 into a wine family on the Côte de Nuits in Burgundy. Her paternal great grandfather François Leroy owned vineyards and founded his own trading house, Maison Leroy, in 1868. The business grew and thrived under his son Joseph’s watch as they diversified and won medals throughout Europe for their wines and spirits. Business was booming.
Later, François’ older grandson Marcel would devote himself to the family’s dairy farm at d’Auvenay, so the younger Henri took over the wine and spirits business. He established a subsidiary to produce cognac and build distilleries and eventually, the spirits and fortified wines business became the most lucrative parts of Maison Leroy. In 1942, Henri made another key investment by buying a 50% share of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (often called DRC and known today as the producer of some of the world’s most expensive wines). At the time, the domaine was in dire need of investments.
Henri shared his knowledge and love of wines with his younger daughter Lalou. In fact, the story goes that he touched her lips with a drop of 1929 Musigny when she was born, and she would finish the little splashes of wine left in guests’ glasses after her family entertained. She took some days off of school every year to participate in harvest, would sneak into cellars to watch the workers, and would often accompany Henri on his increasing visits to DRC.
By 1955, Henri was spending more and more of his time at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and the more lucrative aspects of the family business, like the brandy distillery. In need of someone to put more attention to purchasing fine wines for the family négociant (wine merchant) business, he put the 23 year old Lalou in charge. If the men she worked with were unhappy with dealing with a young woman, she didn’t care.
Image courtesy of Domaine Leroy
At that time, most producers didn’t estate bottle their wine, so Lalou would typically purchase wines from producers by tasting samples in barrels before bringing them back to the family firm’s cellars to age and bottle. By the 80’s, more and more estates started bottling their own wines, meaning less wine for other wine merchants to purchase. In addition, many producers began using a lot of agrochemicals in the mid-60s – something Lalou wasn’t a fan of. She blamed the high yields from vineyards and the use of chemicals for the decreasing quality of wine and refused to compromise on her standards for Maison Leroy. The solution to this problem would be to purchase her own domaine, but first…
In 1964, Maison Leroy acquired the worldwide distribution rights to DRC’s wines (excluding only the UK and the U.S.), so it was only natural that their partnership continued after Henri stepped down. Lalou took the reins of Maison Leroy in 1974 and became the co-director of DRC in 1974, along with her co-director Aubert de Villaine who replaced his father. Lalou helped to make DRC’s bottles some of the most sought after wines in the world not only with marketing but by pushing for organic viticulture and the continuous improvement of wine quality.
As an intelligent and outspoken woman who stuck to her principles, I’m assuming many (men) in the wine industry found her polarizing… By 1992, she left DRC over conflicts. Her nephew, Charles Roch, would replace her (until he died in a car accident a few months later and would be replaced by his brother, Henry-Frédéric. Lalou’s daughter, Perrine Fenal, succeeded Henry in 2019 so it continues to remain in the family.)
By that time, she had purchased a couple of domains along with other vineyards for a total of 55 acres of vines for her own Domaine Leroy. She also established Domaine d’Auvenay, an independent estate in her own right that originally produced only white wines. Inspired by an article she read in a Swiss newspaper, she immediately adopted biodynamic farming. She stopped using chemical fertilizers and anything that could kill soil or plant life, implemented natural yeasts in her fermentation process, followed the lunar calendar, and hired a new winemaker. Unfortunately, mildew spread throughout Burgundy in the summer of 1993. Still refusing to use any chemicals or fungicides, she lost most of her crop – along with her vineyard manager and winemaker. Journalists surveyed the damage in her vineyards while others in the industry criticized her. Still, she remained committed to biodynamic farming.
When she finally released the small amount of 1993 vintage she had a couple years later, people raved. Today, if you do a quick search of Domaine Leroy, you’ll see that critics continue to love and praise her wines – which is why her wines start at about $100 and go for much, much more than that…
If any of you decide to drop a thousand dollars on a bottle of her wine, please invite me over!