Established in 1984, Maison Olivier Leflaive is located in Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune. It encompasses 26 hectares, largely across the Puligny-Montrachet, Meursault, and Chassagne-Montrachet appellations. This discreet house has carved out an enviable reputation in the last 40 years, garnering impressive critical acclaim and a loyal following worldwide.
The long-standing technical team was led by Franck Grux for 35 vintages until his retirement at the end of 2023. Franck chose Solène Panigai to be his successor as Technical Director for the estate — one of Burgundy’s rising winemaking talents.
During a recent visit to the UK, Solène caught up with Oliver Dibben (Senior Buying Assistant) to discuss her new role and the 2023 vintage.

Welcome Solène! Before we begin, could you broadly introduce yourself?

Hello, I’m the new winemaker at Olivier Leflaive!
Some people may be aware that I am not a Burgundy native — I am from Champagne and was born in Reims.

My parents are both engineers in agronomy, which gave me a taste for it growing up.
My first passion is biology and the living world; I find the diversity and complexity incredibly interesting. I wanted a career close to nature but also a manual role that’s intellectually and socially stimulating. For me, wine combines all of that. When I was 18, I went to Paris to begin my studies and afterwards, I attended a famous engineering school in Montpellier where I studied viticulture and oenology.

I have degrees in both fields and for me, it was the best thing I could do.

Whilst studying, I went to Oregon and Bordeaux for work experience in wineries. I also had an internship in Burgundy and learnt a huge amount.
Five years ago, I arrived in Burgundy for my first job. I worked for the BIVB (Le Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne), and I was in charge of several projects in oenology; I met many people in Burgundy and saw many different ways of winemaking. This is where I met Franck Grux and the team at Olivier Leflaive. One day Franck said to me, ‘Hey Solène, I will take my retirement soon and I’m looking for someone to replace me, so you should apply for the job’. At the beginning, I thought it was a lot of responsibility and a big job. I didn’t think at the time that I had enough experience. But I applied, had the interview and got the job. I was really lucky to have met Franck and had those two years with him because we learnt a lot together, and it was a really nice period for me to grow my confidence.

How has it been taking over the position now that you’re solely in charge?

In the beginning, it wasn’t easy because of my age and many people were surprised that a young woman had taken on the role of Technical Director. I had to become very confident very quickly and it’s hard to assert yourself, but I think it’s something you have to do.

People very quickly understood why I was there.
I have a very good relationship with my team, and I think being a manager is the most difficult part of the job because, as a manager, you have to find a good balance between firmness and benevolence. It’s so complicated because when you arrive at a company like Olivier Leflaive, you have a great diversity of people. Most of them had worked there for many years so they had their habits and big personalities and lots of men also. All of that made it a challenge, but I think in the end, I have succeeded. My management style is to explain my decisions and why we will do it like that because that’s important.

When I visited Olivier Leflaive a couple of months ago, and we tasted in the cellar, you talked about some of the little tweaks and changes you wanted to make at the technical level. What changes do you envisage to make?

When I first arrived at Olivier Leflaive, I observed — I think the most important thing you can do is to observe a lot at the beginning. I want to keep the [wine] style because the precision and freshness are important for me. But now, I want to make some changes in the vineyard. The agronomy and the vineyard are the priority because it’s the starting point when you want to have the best grapes to make the best wine. For this, you must have a beautiful vineyard. I speak a lot with Bertrand, who is in charge of the vineyard, and we will have to make some changes to the soil and the way we work. For example, a more hands-off approach because when there is too much labour, it’s not good for the organic material. We also want to change the height of the vines a little and maybe keep the end of the vine until later in the season. They will be little changes, but I think they are really important. At the moment we are in reflection and maybe next year there will be big work to do there.
In the cellar, we also have to change some things; because of climate change, we don’t have the same balance in the wines. So, maybe we need to use less woody oak to be more respectful to the wine. Maybe larger barrels, 4,000 litres or so. At the start of the year, I tried some of these [barrels] for plots that give more generous fruit, and these barrels keep the wines more reductive, so that’s interesting. I also changed some stuff at the pressing stage this year because, for me, to make whites, the big job is the pre-fermentation. So how we are pressing [the grapes] is really important. We bought two new press machines that press with less pressure to preserve more aromas and extract less from the skins.

How would you define the Olivier Leflaive style?

The wines of Olivier Leflaive are based on a mix of minerality and freshness in the mouth — you can always find this. It’s important to preserve these reductive notes and the nice acidity in the wines. It’s also why I want to make some changes in the vineyard because the acidity comes from here. For me, it’s really important to keep a wood influence, too. You see many people now trying other vessels, but I don’t want that. I think the wood is really nice with Chardonnay and also for Burgundy wines in general, it’s part of the DNA. But maybe I will look to use other wood, different oak.

So, obviously we can’t talk about Burgundy without discussing vintage variation. Could you give us an overview of the 2023 vintage?

We had very similar weather during harvest time in 2023 as in 2022. The difference between the two vintages is ’22 was very homogeneous, whereas I think the best word to describe the ’23 vintage is heterogeneous.
The grapes were accelerating, and the skins were splitting, so we had to manage that. We had some cold temperatures and some really hot temperatures, so it was very tricky to find a good date to start the harvest.
The 2023 wines are very diverse so it’s difficult to generalise about the style. We had a generous vintage for sure, but we also had a pretty generous vintage in ’22. I think 2022 is going to develop into a classical vintage because of the lovely balance everywhere: red, white, Côte de Nuit, Côte de Beaune. The grapes were really nice, so everybody did a really good job, but the ’23 vintage was difficult to manage. People had to be very strict, and it was a lot of work.
I see the ’23 vintage as really different and as athletes — they all have their own speciality. They are all interesting for different reasons; they don’t have the same body and are not the same size, but in the end, our job is to coach them accordingly. They will have to be flexible with endurance, be strong and very diverse. It’s the Olympic vintage!

This was your first solo vintage, so which of your wines – your athletes – are you most proud of and why?

That’s really difficult because we have so many different personalities. I think it’s easy to say that the wines coming from our own vineyards, the really good plots, are the best. I think I’m most proud of our biggest cuvées, such as Les Sétilles or our Red Burgundy because we had to match all the different personalities and succeeded in expressing each personality. In the end, I’m pretty proud of what we achieved with these wines because I believe it’s a vintage that will demand time. Right now, we can feel the wines; they are in construction with their body and personality. But I will say the Bourgogne Rouge Cuvée Margot and Bourgogne Blanc Les Sétilles.

So outside of Burgundy, when you’re not busy in the winery or out in the vineyards and you’re taking time to drink some wine, what do you like to drink?

I like to drink many different wines. When I was younger, my father worked in the Champagne industry, so I’ve always been familiar with learning about different wine styles and regions. When drinking whites, I love the Vallée de la Loire. I love those wines because you can have some parallels with the freshness. Also, as I studied in Montpellier, I really love the wines of Southern France — Pic Saint-Loup and Terrasse du Larzac.
I enjoy discovering new things and I like to pair the wine with what I eat. We are so lucky in France, but I would like to know more about wines outside, the wines of Italy, Spain and also the New World. That’s what’s a pity in France, we must always have the wines of our friends.

A lot of our customers like to travel and visit wine regions such as Beaune. Where do you like to drink and eat in Beaune?

Recently, I like to go to Caveau des Arches. It’s a wine bar in the centre of Beaune and they have many different wines so it’s very interesting. In Beaune, you can find lots of restaurants, and it’s very formal, but at Caveau des Arches, it’s really quiet and casual, so I like that.

 I know from your Instagram that you like to draw and paint. If you could draw or paint like any artist, living or dead, who would it be? 

I love to paint. I would say I would have painted the Water Lilies of Monet. It’s always emotional when I see them in Paris. Otherwise, I love contemporary artists, although they’re not really well known. But I really love to follow new artists and I love when you have harmony in terms of colour and some softness in the paintings. I like Lili Wood; she’s a new artist who has made a lot of illustrations — they are really poetic. For me, there are a lot of links between paintings and wine and seeking harmony, feeling and emotion. They allow people to go somewhere else and travel with the wine or painting. I think it’s fantastic.

The 2023 vintage from Olivier Leflaive is now available. You can find the full offer details here.