“Pushes the boundaries, with exotic aromas and flavors of rose, cinnamon, cherry jam and toasted spice. The tannins are dense and assertive, but this will need time for all the elements to integrate. Finishes long. Best from 2022 through 2043.  30 cases imported.” — 94 Points, Wine Spectator

Lucien le Moine is a rarity in Burgundy. It is a garagiste producer of Grand Cru and Premier Cru Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a cult reputation for highly individualistic wines. Its founders and owners are the husband and wife team of Mounir Saouma and Rotem Brakir, who started the label only in 2000. Saouma became fascinated with Burgundy while working in a Trappist Monastery in Jerusalem, and later studied oenology in Montpellier, France. His wife Rotem comes from a cheese-making family and she studied agriculture and oenology in Dijon. The couple owns or leases no vineyards of their own but they purchase small batches of juice or very young cuvee from outstanding Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards in the Cote d’Or. The couple does all the work themselves and produce, at most, 30,000 bottles a year.They work with growers who are scrupulous with their vines, taste the wines very early, and vinify or guide vinification in the methods they prefer. Bottling is by hand via gravity when the wine is ready, and no fining, filtration, or addition of sulphur takes place at bottling.

Robert M. Parker Jr. has written that “the richness and complexity of (their wines) are stunning.” 

“Saouma likes to describe his cellar as a library of Burgundy’s finest terroirs. That’s as good a description as any for these uniformly outstanding, compelling wines.” Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media

"This bright, hard working, extroverted man has created in a few short years one of Burgundy’s finest independent negociant firms." Wine Advocate

"Tasting the wines of Lucien Le Moine is a fascinating exercise, in part because co-proprietor sources excellent wines, but mainly because Saouma’s ideology often runs counter to the prevailing wisdom in Burgundy." Wine Spectator