Épineuil

Épineuil is a hill and a small side valley on the right bank of the Armançon, a tributary of the Yonne, looking across the river at Tonnerre. The vines follow the steep flanks of the hill and the valley between 140 and 265 m, facing south-east, south, south-west and north-west, sheltered from the winds that come off the Langres plateau. The ground is very stony clay-limestone, made from slope debris of the Kimmeridgian, beds of limestone between bands of marl, with Portlandian limestone above: the same family of rock as Chablis, about 15 km to the west. A decree of March 1993 let Épineuil add its name to Bourgogne, for red and rosé from the commune of Épineuil only; 85 ha were declared in 2023, almost all of it red. In 1816 André Jullien found its wines “fins, délicats et très-spiritueux.”

Stéphanie Colinot’s Le Bouquet de Groseille (redcurrant) is Pinot Noir from bought grapes, which she vinifies herself and raises in steel like her Irancys; the vines are about thirty years old. She names neither the grower nor the lieu-dit, so the plate has a single pin, set on the slope above the village to stand for the hill as a whole.

With one wine there is nothing to set against it here: use the sun and height views to read the hill, and tap the pin for the wine. Her Irancys are on Plate XIV, about 30 km to the south-west.