Dufouleur Frères

What you will see

The Œnothèque has three spaces: a bar for relaxed tastings with clear explanations, a tasting room for groups, and a terrace where wines are served by the glass in fine weather. Tasting workshops, some of them private sessions with a member of the team or the family, present a range centred on Nuits-Saint-Georges and the Côte de Nuits. Jean Dufouleur, a qualified oenologist, welcomes visitors to share his passion for the wines.

History

The family traces its ancestry to Gilles Dufouleur, born in 1596, soon after the troops of Duke Casimir had destroyed the town of Nuits and its records. The name almost certainly comes from the fouleur, the worker who trod the grapes, and for centuries it was found only in and around Nuits. In 1848 Symphorien Dufouleur founded a wine-trading business that sold across France and soon in Belgium, and the family bought vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, among them a plot in the Clos de Vougeot that it still owns.

In 1932, during the economic crisis, Joseph Dufouleur and his sons Bernard, Hubert and Jean separated from the elder branch of the family and named their business Dufouleur Frères. They chose the grape treader as their emblem and settled in the château at Nuits that Joseph had bought in 1912. After the Second World War the house grew on export markets and became an official supplier to the Royal Court of Sweden. It has since returned to a more artisanal scale, centred on its own domaine, and three cousins, Marc, François-Xavier and Jean Dufouleur, run it today.