The Inherited Flame & the Chassagne Signal

The story of Réno Pacalet begins with one of the most distinguished bloodlines in natural wine. His father, Philippe Pacalet, is the nephew of Marcel Lapierre and a protégé of Jules Chauvet — the scientist-poet of the natural wine movement. Philippe spent a decade as winemaker at Domaine Prieuré-Roch before founding his own eponymous négociant in Beaune in 2001, turning down an offer from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to forge his own path. Réno grew up in the shadow of this legend, surrounded by the philosophy of whole-cluster fermentation, indigenous yeasts, and zero sulphur — not as dogma, but as the only logical way to reveal terroir.

Yet Réno did not rush to claim his inheritance. Between 2014 and 2016, he spent summers working at a winery in Tuscany, absorbing the rhythms of Mediterranean viticulture far from the hothouse pressure of Burgundy. In 2019 he joined his father's business in Beaune, taking charge of vinification and monitoring the ageing process — a hands-on apprenticeship that gave him intimate knowledge of the Pacalet method. To deepen his technical foundation, he pursued a BTS in Viticulture and Oenology in Beaune, graduating in 2021. Only then, after years of observation and study, did he feel ready to step out alone.

In 2023 he established Maison Réno at Les Pépites, a shared winery in Chassagne-Montrachet that functions as an incubator for young winemakers. His motivation was crystalline in its honesty: "I want to know if I am really ready to carry the family name." Rather than trading on his father's reputation, Réno set out to prove that he could source, vinify, and bottle Burgundy according to his own sensibility — one that shares Philippe's commitment to natural process but seeks a fresher, more immediate, youthfully vibrant expression. The first vintage was tiny — around 10,000 bottles — but it announced the arrival of a new voice in Burgundy: one that respects the past without being imprisoned by it.

Réno Pacalet's cellar philosophy is a direct inheritance from his father, refined through his own lens of consistency and clarity. Every wine in the Maison Réno portfolio is made according to the same method — a deliberate choice that allows the terroir, not the winemaker's whim, to be the variable. Grapes are hand-harvested into small cases and transported whole-cluster to the cellar in Chassagne-Montrachet. No destemming is performed; the stems are integral to Réno's vision of structure, spice, and aromatic complexity.

Fermentation is spontaneous, with indigenous yeasts, and proceeds without temperature control. For the reds, Réno performs punch-downs and pump-overs every two to three days for approximately two to three weeks, extracting colour, tannin, and flavour with a gentle, rhythmic patience. The wines then undergo full malolactic conversion before being transferred to old oak barrels — 228-litre pièces — where they rest on their lees for one year. There is no racking, though occasional lees-stirring may occur. The whites follow a similar path: whole-cluster pressing, spontaneous fermentation in barrel, and ageing on lees for twelve months.

No sulphur is added at any stage — not during vinification, not during élevage, and not at bottling. The wines are unfiltered and unfined. This zero-sulphur approach is non-negotiable, a family covenant that Réno has adopted without hesitation. The result is wines of striking purity and translucency — alive, slightly reductive in their youth, and profoundly expressive of their origins. Réno's style is fresher and more immediately accessible than his father's — less brooding, more vivacious — but it shares the same core belief: that the best Burgundy is made by listening to the grapes, not by imposing upon them.

Réno Pacalet is not merely continuing a family tradition; he is testing whether that tradition can be inherited without being imitated. In a region where the weight of history can crush young ambition, he has chosen the harder path: to prove himself on his own terms, in his own cellar, with his own name. Maison Réno is the proof that the Pacalet philosophy — whole-cluster, native yeasts, zero sulphur, old barrels, and absolute respect for terroir — is not a formula but a living language that each generation must learn to speak anew.

The legacy of Maison Réno is still being written, but its first chapters are already remarkable. In just two vintages, Réno has established a coherent, distinctive voice — one that shares his father's purity and intellectual rigour but adds a youthful immediacy, a brighter energy, and a more playful accessibility. His commitment to consistency — making every wine the same way so that only the terroir varies — is a scientific and artistic statement that will influence how the next generation of Burgundian négociants approaches their craft. And his championing of Aligoté, alongside Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, signals a broadening of Burgundy's narrative beyond the hierarchy of grands crus and into the democratic beauty of honest village fruit.

The future is bright and deliberately open. As Réno refines his sourcing, expands his network of organic growers, and navigates the challenges of climate change in Burgundy — the 2024 vintage tested him with a severe mildew crisis — Maison Réno will grow in volume and ambition, but never at the expense of the principles that define it. The name Pacalet carries weight in the natural wine world; Réno is ensuring that it also carries youth, curiosity, and the courage to begin again. The story of Réno Pacalet is the story of a young man who looked at one of the greatest legacies in wine and asked not "How do I preserve it?" but "Am I ready to carry it?" — and then set out to answer that question, one barrel, one bottle, one zero-sulphur cuvée at a time.