Seiichi Saito was born in China, grew up in Japan, and came to Beaune in 2006 to study at the town’s wine school. He moved to Burgundy for good in 2008. He then spent years in some of the Côte d’Or’s most revered cellars: a few years at Simon Bize in Savigny, plus stints at Mugnier, Rousseau, and Leflaive. In 2014 he co-founded La Lune, a Beaune restaurant with about a dozen seats at a single counter. Its cuisine of precision and deep umami made it one of the most prized reservations in town. Petit-Roy followed in 2017 in Chorey-lès-Beaune. He farms 2.1 hectares of his own regional-appellation vines biodynamically, without certification, and adds fruit from friends who farm with the same care in Burgundy’s less-celebrated villages. Even Beaune’s own wine shops now limit his bottles to three per customer.

Les Lavières takes its name from an old quarry for laves, the thin, flat slabs of limestone that Burgundians once split for dry-stone walls and stone-tile roofs. The soil here is shallow, stony clay that drains quickly, and this quarter-hectare parcel is farmed organically, without certification. Every cluster goes into tank whole, chilled to 12°C. A semi-carbonic maceration gives way to fermentation on indigenous yeasts, with only a few gentle punch-downs at the very end. The wine was aged 12 months in used barrels and five more in tank, then bottled without fining or filtration.

The late heat of 2023 shows here as generosity rather than weight. Wild strawberry and Morello cherry come first, and the stems add pink peppercorn, bay leaf, and a flicker of blood orange peel. The stony ground comes through on the finish as a salty, chalky grip that keeps the fruit lifted. Delicious with a light chill now, it should keep building for years. Enjoy through 2033.