Domaine de la Cras (Marc Soyard)

The city of Dijon bought this 160-hectare property in 2013 specifically to stop urban sprawl from swallowing its green belt — an unusually civic-minded reason for a vineyard to exist. Eight hectares were already planted; the city needed someone to actually farm them.

Marc Soyard, a young winemaker from the Jura with no family vineyard of his own, got the job after six years training alongside Jean-Yves Bizot, one of Vosne-Romanee's most respected names. His rent isn't paid in euros — it's paid in bottles, handed back to the city each year, alongside an open-door policy for visitors. He converted the vines to organic and biodynamic farming as soon as he arrived.