A House Built on Centuries
There are wine estates that feel like businesses, and there are wine estates that feel like families. Domaine Faiveley, tucked into the quiet streets of Nuits-Saint-Georges, is unmistakably the latter — and you sense it the moment you arrive.
The story begins in 1825, when Pierre Faiveley, a plasterer by trade, made the audacious decision to change careers and lay the foundations of what would become one of Burgundy’s most storied maisons. He was, by all accounts, a man who trusted his instincts. Within a decade he had made his first vineyard purchase — a parcel of Porrets-Saint-Georges, today a celebrated Premier Cru — and the die was cast.
The domaine passed to his nephew Joseph in 1860, who seized the turbulence of the phylloxera era as an unlikely opportunity, acquiring grand cru parcels while others fled the region, including the legendary Corton Clos des Cortons, a monopole that remains the jewel of the estate. François followed, then generation after generation of Faiveleys, each one adding parcels, refining the vision, and deepening the roots.
What strikes you most, standing in the courtyard and listening to the family’s history unfold, is the sheer improbability of it all. Wars, crises, vine disease, legal battles — the domaine has weathered everything. Today, the seventh generation is at the helm: Erwan Faiveley, who took over as president in 2005 at just 25 years old, and his sister Ève, who joined him in 2014. Together they preside over 120 hectares stretching across the Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune, and Côte Chalonnaise — a family legacy written in vines, in stone, and in bottle.
Two centuries on, the most astonishing thing, as Erwan himself has said, is simply that they are still here.
