The Constellation, the Cold Hill & the Old-Vine Hand
Domaine de Cassiopée is Burgundy's most compelling answer to a warming climate and an overheating land market — a five-hectare estate founded in January 2020 by Talloulah Dubourg and Hugo Mathurin, two oenologists born in 1994 who trained at the most exacting addresses in the Côte d'Or — Jean-Marc Roulot, Frédéric Mugnier, Clos de Tart, Benjamin Leroux — before Talloulah spent a formative chapter with Marie-Thérèse Chappaz in Switzerland's Valais. Instead of chasing expensive hectares in famous villages, they looked south, to Sampigny-lès-Maranges — the last village of the Côte de Beaune, wedged between wild forestland and the Montagnes des Trois Croix — and took over a little-known domaine of old vines scattered across some fifteen parcels, almost all within a kilometre of their front door. The name comes from the constellation Cassiopeia, the W-shaped guide of night travellers for centuries — and, the couple say, the name they hope one day to give a daughter. The farming was converted to organics from the first day — certified in 2023, largely on biodynamic principles — the vines run to 110 years old, the harvest is by hand, fermentation is spontaneous, sulphur is nearly absent, and élevage splits between used barrels and stoneware amphorae. Where Maranges was long dismissed as too cold to make fine wine — harvest here comes ten to fifteen days after Meursault — Talloulah and Hugo see precisely the opposite: the potential to translate a very particular place into an equally particular wine. Winehog named them Flavour of the Year 2021 for their debut vintage. Burgundy is watching.
The Beaune School, the Southern Search & the 2020 Founding
Anyone with an interest in Burgundy ends up, sooner or later, in Beaune — and it is easy to forget that a few kilometres away there is a very different Burgundy: quiet, rural, almost a little removed from the world. One such place is Sampigny-lès-Maranges, at the southernmost tip of the Côte de Beaune. It was here, in the early months of 2020, that Talloulah Dubourg and Hugo Mathurin founded Domaine de Cassiopée. Their training was as good as it gets: Hugo worked with Jean-Marc Roulot in Meursault and Frédéric Mugnier in Chambolle-Musigny, before serving as technical director at the prestigious Lycée Viticole de Beaune; Talloulah passed through Clos de Tart and Benjamin Leroux before a spell with Marie-Thérèse Chappaz, the pioneering biodynamic grower of the Valais. Two entirely different winemaking schools — and between them, complementary and composite instincts.
Their search for a home was guided by a single conviction: find a place cold enough that, as warming temperatures press northward across Burgundy, it could still produce the fresh, light, energetic wines they actually wanted to drink. Maranges was the answer. The opportunity arrived almost by accident: a property advertised as a nice house with 0.6 hectares of vines — not enough to live from, but it started discussions. Then, through the ill health of the proprietor, suddenly five hectares became possible. "It all went so quickly," Talloulah recalls, "and now we have over fifteen parcels!" They immediately began organic farming — the vines had not been worked that way before — with just the two of them doing the work, plus a little seasonal help for pruning and harvest. The domaine is, quite literally, their life: "The estate is a bit like our first child, and demands even more time than one!"
The reception was immediate and unusual for a debut estate with no website of its own. From the very first vintage, the wines attracted worldwide excitement — pure, mineral-driven, transparent expressions that critics struggled to square with the appellation's humble reputation. Steen Öhman, the Winehog, named Cassiopée his Flavour of the Year 2021 — an award reserved for young and new Burgundian talents — "for taking on the Maranges appellation and finding new, interesting terroirs to express and promote... and for showing, in their first vintage, an ability to produce so much hedonistic joy." Today roughly a third of production stays in France, with the largest exports to the United States and the United Kingdom, and more and more heading east — Berlin's Nobelhart & Schmutzig hosted the couple for their Brand New Burgundy dinner series, at €360 a seat. Five years in, the constellation has become a destination.
"The real work happens in the vineyard. Everything that follows in the cellar is kept to the essentials."
— Hugo Mathurin, Domaine de Cassiopée
The Last Village, the Forest Edge & the Granite Hand
The Maranges appellation — created only in 1989 — spans three villages south of Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet: Cheilly, Sampigny, and Dezize. Domaine de Cassiopée sits at the eastern end of Sampigny-lès-Maranges, at the limit of the premier crus — Les Clos Roussots, Le Clos des Rois, Le Clos des Loyères — though the couple farm no premier cru vines. What they farm instead is arguably more interesting: a mosaic of parcels with exceptional vine age and dramatically varied geology. The cool, windy climate, the wooded hills, and the numerous springs mean that harvest here usually takes place ten to fifteen days later than in Meursault. For a long time this was seen as a disadvantage, and crops were sold off in bulk. Talloulah and Hugo see the opposite: in a warming world, cold is the new grand cru.
Almost all the parcels lie within a kilometre of the couple's house at 3 Rue de la Mairie — the village itself is the vineyard. Directly behind the house stands Le Bas du Clos, 90-year-old Pinot Noir facing southwest on clay-limestone, first to be harvested each year. Nearby, in the best-known part of the appellation, Les Plantes carries the estate's oldest vines — 110-year-old Pinot Noir, planted in the 1910s on sandy clay over limestone, still in remarkable health and capable of a complete, ageworthy wine; since 2023 the site also yields a rare Maranges blanc — white wine is just 5% of the appellation's production. In 2021 the estate recovered a lease at Le Saugeot, in the Cirque de Dezize below the village of Borgy: five blocks on a very steep northeast-facing hillside, opposite the Vignes Blanches des Rouges.
Then there is the geography that makes Cassiopée unlike any other young Burgundy estate: the "cold hill" of the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune southwest of Sampigny, facing the village and the Montagnes des Trois Croix, where the couple farm Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on two slopes of limestone and granite that face each other — vines planted on the site of an old forest, a good example of Maranges' uniqueness with its woods and isolated plots. The white Les Côtes is two-thirds young vines on limestone rock, the rest old vines on granite; the red Les Côtes is fifty-year-old Pinot on atypical granitic bedrock, which the couple say "gives different tannins and grain in the mouth, while also a little delicate"; above them both sits Les Paizets, on more classic clay-limestone. And ten kilometres to the southeast, in Chassey-le-Camp — no close neighbours, only forest — the En Gerlieus hillside carries 40- to 100-year-old Aligoté beside 50- to 70-year-old Pinot Noir, planted northeast toward Beaune.
Fifteen miles from central Beaune and a world away, Sampigny-lès-Maranges is the easternmost village of the Maranges and one of the quietest corners of the Côte d'Or — a place of wooded hills, springs, and farmers rather than tourists. For Talloulah and Hugo it is both workplace and home: the parcels lie within walking distance of the house, the old vines of Le Bas du Clos literally begin behind it, and the domaine's life runs on village time. This is the Burgundy that the new generation is rediscovering — where land is still affordable, where old vines were never grubbed up because nobody bothered, and where a young couple with the right training can build something genuinely new.
The jewel in Cassiopée's crown: 110-year-old Pinot Noir planted in the 1910s, visible from the couple's house, in the best-known part of the appellation. Despite their age the vines are in very good shape, and they produce what the Mathurins call a complete, ageworthy Pinot — gorgeous, silky, deep fruit, red forest berries, an explosion of delicate aromas, with lovely rose notes for complexity. Since 2023, Les Plantes also gives a Maranges blanc — white wine representing barely 5% of the appellation's output, from Chardonnay planted in 2010 on sandy clay over grey marl. Old-vine intensity with evident purity: this is the cuvée on which the domaine's reputation will be built.
Southwest of Sampigny, on a hillside facing the village and the Montagnes des Trois Croix, lies the site Cassiopée calls the "cold hill" — a former forest where two slopes face each other, one limestone, one granite. Here the couple farm the white and red Hautes-Côtes de Beaune Les Côtes, plus Les Paizets above on classic clay-limestone. The granite is atypical for the Côte d'Or and gives the red a distinctive grain of tannin — delicate, different, unmistakable. Twenty years ago this soil was considered too cold for wine; today, in Burgundy's new climate reality, it is precisely the kind of site the smartest young growers are seeking out.
Ten kilometres southeast of the domaine, in the relatively unknown village of Chassey-le-Camp, the En Gerlieus hillside stands alone — no close neighbours, only forest. Here grow Aligoté vines aged 40 to 100 years, beside a 0.9-hectare block of 50- to 70-year-old Pinot Noir planted northeast, toward Beaune. The Aligoté becomes Cassiopée's most celebrated white — 40% raised in amphora, 60% in barrel — while the Pinot, low-yielding from vines in fragile health, gives a deeper, more concentrated, longer-aged Bourgogne rouge. An outpost in the truest sense, and one of the range's most distinctive terroirs.
Native Yeast, Stoneware Amphorae & the No-Sulphur Hand
The Cassiopée cellar is governed by a single sentence from Hugo: "The real work happens in the vineyard." Everything that follows is kept to the essentials. The vines — pruned in Guyot-Poussard, farmed organically from day one and largely on biodynamic principles — are harvested by hand. Fermentation is spontaneous, on native yeasts. Sulphur is used only in minimal amounts — effectively none until a very light dose at bottling, which is itself timed to the lunar calendar. There is no fining and no filtering. Ageing takes place in used barrels and stoneware, the new oak absent almost by definition.
Within that restraint, each cuvée gets its own calculus. The reds are 100% destemmed in most cases, fermented 7–8 days with daily pump-overs, then given a three-week post-fermentation maceration at 30°C before 12 months in old barrels — except the En Gerlieus rouge, which the couple push further: 40% whole cluster and up to 20 months of élevage, 85% old barrel and 15% terracotta jar, for a more concentrated, deeper, more textural wine. The Aligoté En Gerlieus is the range's signature experiment: 40% raised in stoneware amphora, 60% in barrel — the amphora adding effortlessness and a sense of limitlessness, the barrel adding edge and detail, the blend greater than either. There are few generalisations here: some whole cluster, a low-to-no sulphur regimen, and vessels chosen parcel by parcel.
What emerges are wines of beautifully expressive fruit offset by mineral clarity and freshness — lithe, transparent, serious without effects. The Aligoté Mitancherie is a lively, crystal-clear vin de soif at barely 12% alcohol. The Aligoté En Gerlieus is more mineral-intense still — the Winehog ranks it among his favourite Aligotés in Burgundy, alongside Nicholas Faure and Chanterêves. The Hautes-Côtes blanc Les Côtes is elegant, vivid, and pure, improving as the young vines age. The reds range from the Saugeot's hedonistic, floral-mineral charm — a pinot of finesse at 12% — through the granitic depth of the Hautes-Côtes Les Côtes and the wild-raspberry joy of Les Paizets, to the old-vine intensity of Le Bas du Clos and the silky, rose-scented completeness of Les Plantes. And for the truly curious, there is even an eau-de-vie distilled from the centenarian vines. This is winemaking without make-up — precision and restraint learned at Roulot and Mugnier, applied to vines their famous employers never had.
Amphora, Old Oak & the Lunar Calendar — The Cassiopée Method
The guiding principle of the Cassiopée cellar is subtraction: remove everything that stands between the parcel and the glass. No cultivated yeasts — fermentation starts on its own. No sulphur during the year — only a whisper at bottling, timed to the moon. No new oak — used barrels, stoneware amphorae, and terracotta jars, chosen per cuvée. No fining, no filtration. The vineyards supply what the cellar refuses to add: 110-year-old vines for concentration, granite and limestone for mineral spine, altitude and wind for freshness, forest edges for biodiversity. The result is a range that critics describe with the same words again and again — pure, energetic, transparent, joyful. Wines that feel serious without any need for effects, from a corner of Burgundy that the market forgot and the climate is now rewarding.
En Gerlieus, Les Plantes, Les Côtes & the Constellation Hand
The Cassiopée portfolio is a constellation in the literal sense — each parcel its own star, each cuvée its own light, bound together by the same gravity: organic-biodynamic farming, hand harvest, native yeast, old vessels, no make-up. That some wines are classified Hautes-Côtes de Beaune and others Maranges is simply a matter of appellation boundaries, not a shift in style. Production is tiny — 60% was lost to the frost of 2021 alone — and allocations are correspondingly small; roughly a third of the wines stay in France, the rest exported chiefly to the US and UK.
The 1994 Generation, the Cold Bet & the Constellation Hand
Domaine de Cassiopée is barely five years old, yet it has already changed the conversation about what Maranges can be. The last fifteen years have ushered in a new Burgundy — courageous, authentic, young, accessible — and Cassiopée is among its clearest proofs: a couple born in 1994, trained at the region's most demanding domaines, who looked at the same climate data as everyone else and drew a bolder conclusion. Where others fight for rows in Gevrey or Meursault, Talloulah and Hugo bet on cold, wind, forest, and old vines nobody wanted — and on the idea that "too cold" was a verdict of the old climate, not the new one.
The legacy they are writing is a blueprint for the next generation of Burgundy: buy what is overlooked, farm it better than anyone has farmed it, and let the terroir make the argument. In five hectares they have assembled a survey of the southern Côte de Beaune's hidden geologies — granite and limestone facing each other across the cold hill, 110-year-old Pinot behind the house, forest-ringed Aligoté in Chassey-le-Camp — and converted the whole to organics in three years flat, with biodynamic practices and lunar bottling as the working norm. No website, no marketing machine, no premier cru vines — and yet allocations from Berlin to Berkeley, a Winehog Flavour of the Year award, and tasting notes full of the same words: pure, energetic, transparent, joyful.
The future of the project is the future of Burgundy's margins — the hills and valleys that become more valuable with every warm vintage. As the young vines on the limestone rock of Les Côtes come into maturity, as the amphora work grows ever more assured, and as Maranges itself is reappraised by a market finally willing to look south of Santenay, Talloulah and Hugo Mathurin remain what they set out to be: two growers in a quiet village, farming old vines on a cold hill, naming their life's work after a constellation that has guided travellers for centuries — and hoping, one day, to give the name to a daughter. The estate is their first child. The wines are how it speaks.
"The estate is a bit like our first child, and demands even more time than one!"
— Talloulah Dubourg & Hugo Mathurin, Domaine de Cassiopée