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Aubert de Villaine is retiring after half a century at the helm of the cult wine estate Romanée-Conti. The 82-year-old is retiring from the management of the company, but will remain a member of the supervisory board. His nephew Bertrand de Villaine had already taken over the co-management in December last year.
Aubert de Villaine came to Romanée-Conti in the Côte-d'Or in 1965, and he had been in charge of the winery since 1974. When de Villaine started, the Burgundies were not yet selling at exorbitant prices. It was not until 1972 that Romanée-Conti became profitable, de Villaine told the radio station France Bleu. Today, the wines are among the most sought-after and most expensive in the world. Rare bottles fetch prices of up to 50,000 euros. De Villaine is a pioneer in many respects. In 1985, the Domaine was one of the first wineries in the world to convert to organic farming. In the 1990s, he introduced ploughing with horses, followed by the conversion to biodynamics in 2006. It is also thanks to his commitment that the traditional "climats" (vineyard plots) in Burgundy were declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2015.
(ru/ Source: France Bleu; Photo: Wikipedia)