TWO MINUTES WITH | Erwan Faiveley

What’s your ‘last supper’ wine? 
A 1993 Latricières-Chambertin. The bottle that made me fall in love with wine, and convinced me to join the family domaine. It was 1998, and I was turning 18. I had already tried a few wines by then, but I didn’t really know what they were or what I was looking for. On my 18^th, my parents organised a surprise party for me, and went away for the weekend. My father, who was in charge of the family cellar, gave me the key and told me I could drink whatever I wanted. But he suggested our own Latricières-Chambertin, which he told me was a very special wine. It blew my mind. I still taste it every now and then, and even now, 25 years later, it’s still one of the greatest wines I’ve ever had. 

Where’s your dream vineyard? 
On the Moon. Why not? When you dream, you have to dream big. It would be interesting for sure – though I’m not sure the terroir would be quite right for Pinot. So maybe Mars, instead…

Who’s your wine hero? 
Louis Pasteur. He was the first to put some real science into winemaking, back when science was held up as something worthy of respect. I’m not sure that’s the case these days. Not only in wine, either. We’re going through a period that is rather sad for the scientific world. I get the impression that fewer and fewer people believe in science these days. When you look at things like Covid and climate change, there are lots and lots of conspiracy theories, and you get the impression that science is just one theory among lots of other, equally valid beliefs – just an opinion, rather than fact. 

In wine terms, what annoys me today is that, very often, it’s more about hocus-pocus – I’m thinking about biodynamics here – than real, hard scientific fact. I am not a believer in occult science. We know some winemakers like to believe that there are some hidden forces, and also that hocus-pocus is good for marketing purposes. But this is why conspiracy theories are thriving today – some people like to believe there are hidden forces ruling the world. I’m not that kind of person.  

What’s the next big thing in wine?  
Soil preservation – how to farm in a regenerative way. The biology of the soil matters much more than we used to believe, even 20 years ago. And I’m not talking about organic or biodynamic viticulture – we’re not going to save the soil by planting some cow horns and cow shit and the like. It’s more complex than that – we need to add some scientific rigour to what we do.

What’s your favourite wine memory? 
A vertical tasting of Faiveley Clos des Cortons going back to 1923. It was organised by some wine lovers, along with [critic] Allen Meadows, in Atlanta in 2018. They had gathered 30 or 40 different vintages of Clos des Cortons [a Faiveley monopole] and invited me to join them to taste the wines over the course of a weekend – and to bring one or two vintages that they hadn’t been able to source. So I got together some really old stuff and travelled there, and it was a very, very, very cool experience. It was emotionally moving too, tasting wines made by four generations of my family. 

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