Hello,

My name is Grégoire. I am about to start my degree at the SWSB and I am both honoured and lucky to have been selected to be part of the Epistémé 2022 project.

Throughout the upcoming year, I will have the privilege of working with Armand Heitz and his team on the production of a vintage.

It will be a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to the skill of such professionals, especially in a world that I have so much to learn about. Indeed, my experience stems from the world of beer.

For the past several years, I have been fascinated by this often misunderstood and misjudged drink in France. And it is my knowledge of the world of beer that intrigues Armand Heitz and will allow us to learn about our respective specialities together this year.

With this in mind, I boarded the Armand Heitz ship at the end of August to experience the grape harvest first-hand and to become familiar with the wine production process. I must admit that while I am used to tanks, so many things are different from what I know. Yet, from the very first days on the estate, I immediately realised that the philosophy of winemaking speaks to me.

I am keen to adapt to the duty that Armand imposes and lives up to, combining nature with tradition, and above all, quality.

I am discovering a new world and I am confident that our collaboration will be fruitful.

As I mentioned before, I knew that Armand was particularly intrigued by the world of beer. Well, not only does he find it intriguing, but before I arrived, he had decided to delve into this world to experience it in a concrete way.

Being able to use my expertise in a new world that he’s so keen on exploring was therefore one of the reasons I was selected among my classmates. The estate is beginning to explore this world with the recent release of two series of beer. With this new production, it was only natural to ask the question: will Epistémê 2022 be wine or something else?

My question naturally leads you to the obvious answer: this year's Epistémê is to be a bridge between wine and beer.

If your natural response is that everything has its place and wine and beer are not to be mixed. you'd, in fact, be wrong. There are products that are close to both worlds, but not well known to the general public.

These hybrid styles called grape ale or “vière” by some French breweries, are the result of beer fermentation on grapes. There are many ways to do this, as craft beer is a very uncodified world.

And many things can nuance the finished product: the base of the beer, the malts used, the yeasts if the wort is inoculated, the variety of grape and its terroir, the cask used if there is ageing, etc. These are some of the questions Armand and I are working on to create the Epistémê 2022 vintage.

Today, we are still at the decision-making stage in order to have a product that is affordable and delightfully surprising. Stay tuned to know more about all the processes to come!

This year’s Epistémè project is unique in that it is bringing together more stakeholders than usual.

• To start, there is School of Wine & Spirits Business, of course, which I represent on a daily basis in this project. It has not only given me its vote of confidence, but Armand and I have a lot of freedom to create this year’s vintage.
• Secondly, Armand plays an undeniable central role in defining the product and its composition. His knowledge of wine is essential to create a quality hybrid product, and his values which resonate in his products must also be reflected in this wine-beer hybrid. It goes without saying that nothing would be possible without the estate’s production and everyone who works at every step, from grape harvesting to the agricultural work, to the commercialization.
• The last stakeholder is directly linked to this year’s choice of producing a beer. Indeed, while there are some similarities between wine and beer equipment, Armand did not have the facilities to produce beer, including a mash tun, a brew kettle, and different sanitary means. It was therefore necessary to ask a brewery to produce the beer. Enter Brasserie de France. This new Beaune based brewery supplies its tanks and provides its services to other firms and will soon offer brewing classes. I invite you to read the article I had the opportunity to write for Armand’s website about this new and ambition collaboration.

Having a third stakeholder is a novelty this year. Indeed, it gives the EPISTEME project a new impetus, with very different means compared with previous years. It also creates new challenges, like having more different points of view to take into consideration, as well as knowing how to agree on the best way forward to make an original and exemplary terroir product.

Negotiations are subsequently in full swing on a regular basis, and it is necessary to have tastings of other similar and inspiring products so that at the end of the project, everyone is not only satisfied but proud of their work and of the finished product.

With the final stages of the Episteme project approaching and brewing on the horizon, it was important to define the product in a comprehensive way. To do this, we chose to take a completely different direction as the season and the remaining time did not allow us to do everything, in particular, we were not able to add grapes to the beer and to put it into barrels.

The next step was to decide on the best way to highlight the terroir while remaining accessible to the greatest number of people and highlighting the different strengths of our collaboration.

Fast forward to today, after various meetings and careful consideration of Armand's current products and our mutual expectations regarding the project. Common ground was found : rather than making something ordinary, we decided to make a simple, with high quality product.

We chose a style that is both particularly close to my heart and perfectly fits the above-mentioned description : grisette. This wheat beer, is known for being dry and very light, and in the past was coined the miners' beer. Not only does it wonderfully bring out the wheat used, some of which is raw, but it also speaks volumes about the land while is very enjoyable to drink.

Once we agreed on the style, we wanted to refine it. I therefore selected different examples of this style to compare and ultimately choose the grisette we wanted.

All three parties then met, and decided to try to limit the acidity, which is sometimes considered as too aggressive for this style, and we are set on honouring the local raw wheat used.

What we need to do now is put all this into practice, develop a coherent recipe, test it to determine if we have time on a sample, and then brew the beer. In short, the next few weeks will be crucial for this project. Stay tuned!

With its first grape harvest in 2020, EPISTÉMÊ is a special cuvée produced every by a student from the School of Wine & Spirits Business in association with the committed Burgundy wine maker, Armand Heitz.

After two wine cuvées, this year’s choice was indeed unprecedented: brewing a beer. A third partner joined the adventure: Brasserie de France in Beaune.

The Cuvée 2022 was officially presented last week at BSB Dijon by MSc Wine Management student Grégoire Blanc.

Grégoire has had the unique opportunity of being involved in each of the production steps of the beer, a Grisette.

‘’We wanted to make something for everyone’’, Grégoire describes, conveying his passion for beer. ”La Grisette’ is very light and thirst-quenching with a touch of raw wheat that brings it acidity.”

As for Armand Heitz,‘’ The idea of this cuvée came from the fact that when I was a student I was frustrated not being able to express myself as I wanted to. [The cuvée] allows young people express themselves through a creation. Transmission of knowledge in practice. And once again, this new cuvée is a wonderful success, both in the glass and in the sharing!”

Bravo and thank you to Armand, Grégoire and Jean-Claude Balès for this third EPISTÉMÊ cuvée!