Yvon Vocoret

A stature forged by an exceptional wine adventure started in the heart of Chablis. Yvon Vocoret is discovered through the narration of his story. Authentic in the memories that flow by the sound of a voice full of tenderness and accompanied by a sparkling look, allowing to guess the images that come back to him from his first steps in the family domain in Maligny until his son, Laurent, tooke over the estate in 2018. Yvon is an heir and a smuggler. The heir of a family of winemakers since 1707. A smuggler of traditions cleverly maintained and ingeniously improved over the years.

Humility and respect

And if Yvon Vocoret tells you that there is no know-how, if you listen to him, you can guess that the winegrower was forced to know-how. A know-how towards Mother Nature. A know-how characterized by humility and respect. For nature takes and takes back, according to its desires and whims. This is precisely why there is no know-how: the winegrower constantly questions himself, constantly anticipate, constantly updates his knowledge according to the bad weather and diseases of the vine.

Technical and legal developments were added to these natural elements. Yvon Vocoret’s generation has experienced an unprecedented modernization of working tools and especially to harvest. If winemaking does not change and continues from century to century, the working tool has considerably improved during his operating years.

And what Yvon Vocoret gained in easing the strain, he generously gave it back to the land and the vineyard by giving them more attention and care. A priestly devotion of every moment for this magnificent Chablis land. By day or by night. In good weather, in the rain, facing the frost that can decimate the labor of a whole season.

The increasingly strict regulations and legislation concerning the quality of wine, he lived them as a normal and necessary evolution: an accompaniment in his constant search for a higher quality of the wine he produced. Yvon Vocoret and his son today produce “clean” and can proudly wear the “High Environmental Value” label. This greatly improves the quality of their wine. As Yvon Vocoret likes to repeat tirelessly as an immutable rule, “What you give to Mother Nature, is given back to you”. We must therefore understand his vineyard.

Like wine, the winemaker improves with time. Mother Nature teaches and the winemaker learns humbly.

An inexhaustible vocation

Now retired Yvon supports his son Laurent. This subsidiary transfer of the estate is his great pride. The fifth generation of Vocoret took over. And Yvon, always looking to the future and for quality, surprises himself to learn again and again. He is grateful to his son and to all those who have accompanied him throughout his career: his wife, his daughter-in-law and his team who made Domaine Yvon and Laurent Vocoret a big family.

Without them, the 26-hectare estate would not be on the tables of the world. Indeed, 70% of the 90,000 bottles produced every year are exported.

Today, it is a whole vineyard that shows its gratitude to Yvon Vocoret. In 2010, his peers named him Grand Architrave of the Confrérie des Piliers Chablisiens whose mission is to promote Chablis, its region and its vineyards in France and all around the world. For Yvon Vocoret, faithful to his values of respect, solidarity and generosity, the adventure is going on.