Lalou Bize-Leroy, born 1932 as Marcelle Leroy is a female French winery

Winery

A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, bottling lines, laboratories, and large expanses of...

 owner in the Burgundy wine

Burgundy wine

Burgundy wine is wine made in the Burgundy region in eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône River, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here - those commonly referred to as "Burgundies" - are red wines made from Pinot Noir grapes or white wines made from...

 region. Madame Bize-Leroy is the owner of the wineries Domaine d'Auvenay and Domaine Leroy.

Lalou established herself as a businesswoman in the Burgundy wine business in 1955, when she took over her father Henri Leroy's (1894–1980) négociant

Négociant

A négociant is the French term for a wine merchant who assembles the produce of smaller growers and winemakers and sells the result under its own name....

 business. From 1974, she was co-managing the Burgundy winery Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, often abbreviated to DRC, is an estate in Burgundy, France that produces white and red wine. It is widely considered among the world's greatest wine producers, and DRC bottles are among the world's most expensive...

 (DRC), one of the world's top wine estates, and was in charge of marketing. Along with Aubert de Villaine

Aubert de Villaine

Aubert de Villaine is co-owner and co-director of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. Some of the world's most expensive wines are produced on its vineyard. He was originally co-director with Lalou Bize-Leroy, both having inherited their ownership...

, Bize-Leroy helped build DRC's top wine Romanée-Conti

Romanée-Conti

Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the sole grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la...

 into one of the most sought after wines in the world. A series of disagreements, including Bize-Leroy's displeasure at de Villaine's involvement in the Judgment of Paris wine tasting and disputes over Bize-Leroy's handling of the distribution of the Domaine's wines, led to her being ousted in 1992.

After leaving DRC, she has focused on her own domains. Already in 1988, she had acquired significant vineyard holdings for Domaine Leroy. During the 1990s, she established Domaine Leroy as one of the leading Burgundy wineries.

Lalou Bize-Leroy is a strong believer in biodynamic wine

Biodynamic wine

Biodynamic wines are wines made using the principles of biodynamic agriculture. Biodynamic refers to both the agricultural methods and the handling and processing of the fruit post-harvest.-Biodynamic viticulture:...

production, and practices it in her domaines.