La Mutine

La Mutine

Raw northern Burgundy from a limestone hill in Vézelay.

snapshot

Region: Vézelay, Grand Auxerrois — northern Burgundy, limestone and clay hillsides around the village of Island. AOC since 2017, winemaking history going back to the Cistercians.

Grapes: Chardonnay, Melon de Bourgogne (whites) · Pinot Noir (reds)

Style: Tense, mineral whites and precise, chalky reds. Northern Burgundy clarity — nothing smoothed over.

Farming: Fully organic, worked by hand and old tractor. Low yields, parcel by parcel.

Cellar: Whole-bunch fermentation on reds, direct press on whites. Indigenous yeasts, light sulphur at bottling only. Unfiltered, unfined across the range.

Signature: Chalky mineral edge, electric tension, pure fruit. The precision of Meursault training applied to a wilder northern terroir.


"La Mutine, c'est une viticulture corps à corps."

JEAN-PAUL PANDO
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HOW HE GOT HERE

Jean-Paul Pando came to wine through restaurants — years spent between Provence and Bordeaux before deciding he wanted to be on the other side of the bottle. He trained at Domaine Jean-Marc Roulot in Meursault, one of the most precise white wine addresses in Burgundy, and absorbed both the technical rigour and the respect for place that defines Roulot's work.

In January 2022 he left to start something of his own. He chose Vézelay — not Meursault, not the Côte d'Or — a quiet limestone hill in the Grand Auxerrois that has been making wine since the Cistercian monks arrived in the Middle Ages. The AOC was only recognised in 2017. The terroir was already ancient.

La Mutine — the rebellious one — is 2.5 hectares. Everything is worked by hand or old tractor. The intervention in the cellar is minimal by design, not by fashion.

Where The Wine Is Born

Vézelay sits at the northern edge of Burgundy, where the Yonne and Cure valleys meet. The soils are limestone and clay — harder and more austere than the marl-rich soils of the Côte d'Or. The climate is more continental, cooler, with a shorter growing season.

That austerity shows in the wines. The whites are tense and saline, with a mineral edge that comes from the rock. The reds are fine-boned and precise — Pinot Noir that looks north rather than south. Pando works parcel by parcel, picks by feel, and lets the place do the talking.

Vézelay

HOW THE WINE FEELS

Chalky Edge

Limestone tension with real grip.

Pure Fruit

Nothing added, nothing masked.

Northern Precision

Cool-climate clarity, alive in the glass.
FOR THE NERDS

La Mutine's reds see whole-bunch fermentation — a choice that brings perfume, freshness and structural complexity without relying on extraction. Maceration times are moderate. Sulphur additions are minimal and made only at bottling if needed. Nothing is fined or filtered.

The whites go direct to press, ferment in tank on indigenous yeasts, and rest on fine lees before bottling without fining or filtration. The result is wines with texture and depth but no heaviness — the lees contact adds body without softening the mineral core.

For a domaine this young, the consistency across the range is notable. The terroir is doing the work that in other cellars is done by technique.

"Une semplicità autentica — une viticulture qui vise à laisser le monde meilleur qu'elle ne l'a trouvé."