Henry Frédéric Roch created the Domaine Prieuré Roch in 1988. Concerned about the traditions and the pedological peculiarities of the Burgundy terroir, he develops and enlarges the estate by scrupulously applying the ancestral methods of vineyard management, winemaking and aging that have made the glory of Burgundy wines. Methods now called organic or biodynamic. Having become co-manager of Romanée Conti following the death of his brother Charles, he shares his wine concept and his passion for great pleasure wines with Yannick Champ, whom he appoints co-manager of Domaine Prieuré Roch. Since 2010, Yannick Champ has been co-manager of Domaine Prieuré Roch. A Parisian by birth, he met Henry Frédéric Roch in 2002 and gave up studying medicine to become a winegrower. With Henry, he was introduced to natural cultivation and winemaking methods while completing a specialized master's degree in Vine and Terroir in Dijon. Today, with Henry, he carries the spirit and fame of Domaine Prieuré Roch. Philosophy: Henry Frédéric Roch and Yannick Champ do not consider themselves to be “wine-makers”. The winemaker does not, he drives. The French notion of "vineyard management" means that it is less a question of ruling or managing than of listening to and supporting the vine carried by its terroir according to the luck of the seasons, in order to arrive in the best conditions, not to create, but to give birth to wine. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who during the second part of his life led a constant dialogue with Asian thinkers of Tao and Zen, conceived of freedom as "letting be". A letting be that is not passivity but respect, concern for others who are nature, or for every man his neighbor. The winemaker's neighbor is a lover of good wine. It takes what British novelist John Cowper Powys considered to be the most important thing in the world before pride: humility. Humble, the winegrower does not "make" or fix the taste of his wine. It allows and promotes its expression by caring for its vines and protecting the emerging beverage from the vagaries that create imbalance; by ensuring that this living material has the greatest possible freedom so that the terroir and the vines can express themselves dynamically and perfect in keeping. Proud, he asserts the taste born of his land and the luck of the vintage against all definitions, fashions and dogmas. And too bad if we consider it an original. Since its originality is to be tasted: it is only that of its wine, as the vintage "wanted" it. The notion of balance is fundamental. Balance of the soil, balance of the plant, balance of the wine, and therefore balance of the winegrower's gesture which maintains and guides the living matter according to what it is and not what it should be. Because the famous "specificity" of a terroir and an appellation is not a form that can be defined by experts in the science of wine or that of trade, a form established a priori as a standard to be imposed on this material. Rather, it designates all the expressive peculiarities (taste qualities) of a given grape variety on a given terroir, expression obtained through traditional practices and taking into account the minimum possible of rectification. This minimum of artificial modification of the soil and the wines that is called the traditional expression "of fair and constant use". The notion of tradition is very important. The cultivation and winemaking practices, established patiently by experience, have revealed the intimate conjunction of a grape variety and a soil in the taste of wine. The winegrowing tradition, born more than 7000 years ago, carries this precious knowledge from generation to generation. So centuries ago, in Burgundy, the monks of Cluny and Cîteaux, working the vines for the glory of God not for profitability, patiently discovered that the wine, on this side of the road, did not the same taste as the vine on the other side. We owe them the location of the famous climates for which the Burgundians are famous. Their God was a fine oenologist! Today, technical progress and biochemical analysis tools have made it possible to "scientifically" confirm their intuitions. These natural and traditional data, which determine the purpose and role of the winegrower, must be respected because they are irreplaceable. They are not immutable, they are alive. Each generation of winegrowers inherits them and must use them to pass them on, identical and different, to the next generation. Modifying or "correcting" them, in the name of performance or marketing targeting, is now possible using biochemical techniques and products. But, in addition to the resulting consequences for the health of consumers, this amounts to betraying its meaning: the expression of nature (a terroir, a grape variety, a vintage) which brings together and delight wine lovers. It is not a question of denying or dogmatically refusing the contributions of technical and scientific progress. It is a question of not using them against the natural expression of a terroir and a vine in the taste of wine. Not to use it to trade tradition for trade. Thus, for example, the arrival in the cellars of electricity, concrete, running water, stainless steel, rubber, is an incomparable benefit for the winegrower who wants to make wine naturally, without organic assistance. -chemical. Modern means have greatly increased its power to protect and serve the natural expression of wine in winemaking, that is, tradition. The picturesque cellar with clay floors is no longer traditional except for postcards. The symbol or "coat of arms" of the Prieuré Roch estate, affixed to wine labels, borrows, and interprets it, from ancient Egypt the hieroglyph signifying viticulture. When the estate was created in 1988, Henry Frédéric Roch, having previously lived and worked in the Nile valley, found in the composition of this hieroglyph a fair expression of the values he intended to carry high by developing cultivation and winemaking according to entirely “natural” methods, which at the time, in the climates of Burgundy, was a precursor. The glyph of the two yellow "mouths" symbolizes the eye of the divine at the top, which corresponds to the powers that go beyond us, the power of nature, of the land, of time in the vintage; below, the human eye, the power that knows itself to be limited, that leads, listens, receives and protects what comes from the other. Below the three ovoids symbolizing the logs of the grape, very different, singular, this raw material of the vinification where the Burgundian sorting distinguishes the millerandés, these small very concentrated logs which provide the greatest vintages. On the side, the papyrus leaf which symbolizes both plant life and the work of the scribe who records and orders human acts, who settles the movement of time. The coat of arms thus constituted, the name Roch is its base, even more than the signature, because it designates those who, at the present time, are in charge of values: the estate team and through it, the friends who share them and defend them. Fermentation: At Domaine Prieuré Roch the fermentation is carried out whole harvest. This means that we do not scratch and that the bunches are placed whole in the tank. This traditional Burgundian method contributes to the richness and tannic delicacy of the great Burgundies. It demands that the bunches be picked ripe, the stalk like the logs. Fermentation takes place naturally, without any additions, by the indigenous yeasts present on the bunches. One of the essential conditions for the expression of the terroir.