While modern California winemaking is filled with the names of French natives leaving a mark there—like Michel Rolland, Philippe Melka, Jean-Charles Boisset, and Julien Fayard—there is almost no flip side to that story. Enter Kenneth Juhasz, proprietor of Auteur in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, who was captivated by Burgundy as a young wine lover on a trip that steered him into his lifelong occupation. After working harvests and consulting in Willamette Valley, New Zealand, Napa, and Sonoma, he has been honing his craft and perfecting his technique with site-specific Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at Auteur since 2003. Adding to his repertoire, Juhasz is about to release the extremely limited production Auteur 2023 Griotte-Chambertin Grand Cru from a highly prized site in Gevrey-Chambertin. How limited? Just 144 bottles are being imported into the United States ahead of next year’s release of 300 bottles each of one red and two whites.

It’s fitting that Juhasz’s initial offering is from Gevrey-Chambertin, as it was a glass from there during a European backpacking trip with his twin brother that set him on his winemaking path. “It was the first thing that I ever had that had a sense of depth and layering and paradox,” he says. Just 23 years old at the time, he now recalls that “it was so perfumed and powerful and elegant; it was almost difficult to understand, like philosophy in a glass.” Having traveled to roughly a dozen countries across the continent with his brother John, Juhasz says he began to understand the pace and the deep appreciation of everyday life, “which felt strikingly different from the United States.” It’s apparent that despite their humble circumstances the two had a taste for fine living. “My twin brother carried a tattered copy of Living Poor in Style everywhere we went. Somehow, I still have it. He’d underlined a passage in blue ink: ‘Always carry food and carry a coat with spacious pockets and a good pocketknife.’” To that, Juhasz says he would add “a corkscrew and a bottle of village wine.”

While studying, Juhasz had been working in fine-dining restaurants and a wine shop to help with his college tuition, but once he turned his sights from selling wine to making it, he embarked on the career path that has defined his adult life. “I had fantasy of making wine and at the time it felt very distant, difficult, and impossible to attain,” he says. In his pursuit of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable odds, Juhasz headed to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where he met his future wife and business partner, Laura, with whom he founded Auteur in 2003. Having worked with almost every well-known grape during stints working at or consulting for the likes of Pali Wines, Gary Farrell, the Donum Estate, and Tuck Beckstoffer Wines, Juhasz has firmly focused on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for the bulk of his career. “To this day, they remain the most noble varietals to me,” he says. His travels are a consistent theme in life-altering events: While he had always dreamed of making wine in Burgundy, he assumed it would be something he would do later in life, after retiring from winemaking and leaving the United States. “My trip late last summer turned out to be a very promising detour,” he says. “One I’m glad I took.”

Having been introduced to highly respected Burgundian négociant Manoël Bouchet by a mutual friend in Sonoma, Juhasz says he and Bouchet hit it off immediately, although future releases will be made in partnership with Pierre-Henri Rougeot. “The initial Grand Cru acquisition was never a planned shift or intention; it was more of a spark that ignited a broader, more oblique long-term vision,” Juhasz says. “It came to me, honestly. I couldn’t refuse it, because it spoke to me and Mano helped guide me.” With just eight producers having access to the En Griotte Grand Cru site, Juhasz relied on Bouchet’s understanding of the “timeline of these wines in their youth and their deep, storied reverence of place in Burgundy,” he says as he moved forward with the project. “I liked Mano because he had this ‘I know’ factor. He understood the regions with an intensity and clarity that allowed him to truly see them.”

Pinot Noir lovers enjoy wines from Sonoma and Burgundy for different reasons, often citing the power and concentration of those from California versus the elegance and restraint of their French counterparts. Juhasz explains that while a direct comparison cannot be made between the soils of Burgundy and California, they impose similar types of stress on grapevines: “Burgundy’s abundance of limestone and California’s diverse volcanic and marine sandy soils share a common denominator essential to great Pinot Noir: stress, structure, and drainage. This is our shared terroir.” While Burgundy’s limestone aids in the development of acidity and California’s ancient volcanic soils add depth and complexity, both yield mineral-driven, well-structured wines that are made to age. “Under Auteur, my role is to interpret and execute that same quality of vine stress across two very different hemispheres,” he says. “I can’t wait to place them side by side and let the mother rock speak for itself.”

There are also differences in climate; with a much lower UV index and extremely variable weather, Juhasz believes “Burgundian winemakers truly have nerves of steel,” while “California has a weather consistency that can’t be denied.” He also sees strong philosophical disparity between the two regions and their wine, citing the influence of centuries of monks tending to the vines of Burgundy that has led to an understanding of the inherent spirituality of wine. Meanwhile, with California situated closer to Asia than to France, Juhasz thinks it draws more from yogic and Buddhist philosophy than the Christian monastic tradition. “That influence brings a creative freedom, an openness, that naturally finds its way into California winemaking,” he explains.

He considers the California spirit that he brings to Burgundy a synthesis of both worlds. “It’s the technical clarity and precision of the New World applied to the deeper, spiritual traditions of Burgundy. I’m not simply following tradition, nor am I breaking it,” Juhasz says. “Instead, I’m drawing on years of experience to make intentional choices in service of the fruit to realize its fullest potential. I’ve always walked the line between Old World and New World, delicately and respectfully.” The 2023 growing season was marked by a warm summer punctuated by timely rainfall and a final heatwave during harvest, resulting in wines with a rare combination of quality and quantity. For his first bottling, Juhasz chose a non-interventionist winemaking regime, using a cold soak followed by native fermentation, and a focus on expressing fruit and terroir.

Auteur 2023 Griotte-Chambertin Grand Cru is ruby to the eye and has aromas of cherry, pomegranate, cotton candy, and violet. Plush tannins are wrapped around flavors of pomegranate, cranberry, black cherry, vanilla, and candied orange peel that culminate in a vivid finish. With so few bottles available, we know we are not alone in our keen anticipation of the next round of Burgundy releases from Auteur.