Domaine Digioia-Royer

Domaine Digioia-Royer is a wine estate in Burgundy, France, founded in the 1930s by Victor Moretti. In 1984, he passed on his estate to his daughter, Geneviève Royer-Moretti, who in turn passed on her passion for wine and the estate to her son-in-law Michel Digioia in 1999. The estate now extends over 5 hectares around the town of Chambolle-Musigny. This is one of the better-known – and also smaller – villages on the Côte de Nuits, the northern half of the Côte d’Or. These parcels contain regional, municipal and premier cru appellations in Chambolle-Musigny, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Savigny-les-Beaune and Hautes Côtes de Nuits.

Even by Burgundy standards, Domaine Digioia-Royer is considered a small estate. Half of Michel Digioia’s production is of regional appellation. The other half is Chambolle-Musigny village or Chambolle-Musigny premier cru. “I would like to expand with more plots at village or premier cru level. Or grand cru if possible…” he says about this himself. “But I don’t want to expand too much. I want to continue working in the vineyards and in the cellar. I don’t want to end up in an office and have others work for me. I want to stay close to all aspects of quality and the end product. I think that when you are working in the field, it pays off.” The vines are therefore managed in a sustainable way and have been certified as ‘Haute Valeur Environnementale’ since the 2019 harvest. This certification promotes agricultural authorities that work with more attention to the environment. The work in the vineyards is therefore completely manual and without the addition of chemical agents. In the cellar – which is also located in the domaine, in the heart of the village of Chambolle-Musigny – the grapes ripen completely destemmed (‘éraflée’) in the best oak barrels for a period of 6 to 18 months.

During his years on the domaine, Michel Digioia has changed a lot. While his father-in-law still used chemicals for weed control, Michel only works the soil with the help of mechanical weed control. “Of course, they didn’t know any better back then. Nowadays, we are much more environmentally conscious.” According to Michel, the development in the region is positive. “In the time of my grandparents, it was different. They didn’t pay so much attention to quality, they were more interested in quantity. The young generation is going in the right direction. Today’s winemakers understand that quality must always come before quantity.” A line of thought that we fully agree with and that, in our opinion, cannot be sufficiently promoted.