Xavier Yverneau

Xavier Yverneau is a young grower based in Saint-Père, near Vézelay in northern Bourgogne. After years of working alongside his family of winegrowers, he established his own domaine in 2022, starting with almost two hectares of vines around Vézelay. Here, Yverneau is part of a new generation bringing vineyards back into production in an area where viticulture was once far more extensive, before phylloxera and the decline that followed transformed the local landscape.

His vineyards around Saint-Père are planted predominantly with Chardonnay on clay-limestone slopes, including well-exposed sites facing southwest. In 2023, Yverneau expanded further into the Yonne, adding parcels around Vermenton and Irancy. This also brought Pinot Noir into the domaine alongside Chardonnay, with his first Irancy released at the end of 2024.

The approach in both vineyard and cellar is deliberately restrained. Grapes are harvested by hand, herbicides are avoided and fermentations rely on indigenous yeasts. Sulphur additions are kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on allowing the individual vineyards and vintages to determine the character of the wines. Production remains very small: the Vézelay, for example, amounts to only around 4,100 individually numbered bottles per vintage and is aged in French oak.

Yverneau’s wines combine the freshness associated with this northern part of Bourgogne with texture and a clear sense of place. The domaine is still very young, but its small-scale production, parcel-focused approach and work in the vineyards of Vézelay and the Yonne make it an interesting example of the renewed viticultural activity taking place in northern Bourgogne.