Arcane comes from a plot of red-earth soil in Chautagne, a rare terroir on Corentin Houillon's estate that gives Pinot Noir a particular racy, mineral quality. Yields here are naturally low, and the wine is treated with the same care that scarcity demands. Half the harvest is destemmed and half is left as whole clusters, macerating together for sixteen days before ageing for a full year in barrels previously used for other wines, letting the fruit breathe without picking up new oak character.

2024 was a difficult vintage in terms of quantity, hit by the kind of pressures that reduced yields across much of the domaine. What made it into bottle, though, is a wine of remarkable purity and persistence. This is Pinot Noir at its most direct, refined and racy, an expression of Chautagne terroir stripped of anything superfluous. It rewards patience in the glass and pairs naturally with charcuterie, aged cheese, or simply on its own, savoured slowly.