Patrick Piuze

Patrick Piuze (born 1973) is a Canadian who has been making waves with his negociant cuvées of Chablis since 2008. Prior to that he worked at Olivier Leflaive, where he learned how to manage a wide range of wines and how to negotiate with potential grape suppliers, with Jean-Marie Guffens of Verget, where he learned how to judge harvest dates (but perhaps not so much about diplomacy…) and Jean-Marc Brocard, an experience which provided understanding of the mosaic of vineyards of the Chablis region.

Two things set Patrick Piuze apart: his wine style, as discussed below, and the fact that as well as the 1ers and grands crus that you might expect, he makes a wide range of Chablis from different terroirs all round the region, so you can compare ‘straight’ Chablis from Chichée, Courgis, Fleys, Fontenay, Fyé etcetera.

The philosophy is this: pick early using their own team, use a mechanical, vertical press rather than pneumatic, avoid chaptalisation even at relatively low sugar levels, ferment with natural yeasts, and bottle early. ‘I want the acid backbone, and not a duality with alcohol’. Patrick also plays around with times of day at the harvest: he aims to pick in the afternoon if he wants to accentuate the fruit, or in the morning if he thinks it needs calming down (e.g. Bougros). He likes his tanks big and wide to avoid reduction, while barrels are bought second-hand from high acid vintages. Indeed, the wines can sometimes be as rasping as Patrick’s Quebecois accent, but they are exciting, vibrant, terroir-defined examples of Chablis.