Georges Comte of Le Moutherot: There is No Need For Sulfitage

A 2019 interview with the natural winemaking legend of the Doubs.

The first thing natural wine lovers ask one another, after confirming a mutual awareness of the singular wines of Doubs natural wine pioneer Georges Comte, is usually, “Do you think it’s really natural?” Such is the classical precision and poise of Comte’s winemaking that many find it eerily reminiscent of certain conventional great wines of the Côte d’Or. It can seem downright impossible that Comte regularly reproduces such silhouettes entirely without the addition of sulfites.

Comte’s own origin story is so thinly sketched as to invite speculation. He worked in the prosthetics industry in Dijon throughout the 1980s, where he cultivated friendships with many great winemakers of the era. Upon returning to his native Besançon in 1988, he acquired and replanted Le Moutherot, an 8ha vineyard site of historical renown in the village of Emagny. Since the beginning, he has contacted vineyard work to a vigneron, and produced his own long-aged chardonnays and pinot noirs from the portion of grapes he receives as rent.

The 1990s represent something of a lacuna within Comte’s winemaking career; I do not know what clientele he cultivated or whether he even sold his early wines.