René Geoffroy is a grower-producer with roots in Cumières stretching back to the seventeenth century; it was Roger Geoffroy and his wife Julienne who first began estate-bottling in the 1950s rather than selling to négociants, and their son René continued that work before third-generation Jean-Baptiste — trained in both viticulture and oenology — joined in the late 1980s and relocated winemaking in 2008 to a nineteenth-century gravity-flow cellar in Aÿ. Empreinte is an assemblage of three historic domaine parcels in Cumières — Les Chalmonts, Les Barremonts and Les Pêchers — all south-facing at around 160 metres altitude on a 19% slope, with clay-limestone soils laced with silex fragments, within a village classified at 93% on the échelle des crus and holding Premier Cru status.

The 2017 is built entirely from Pinot Noir — specifically the estate's "Pinot Noir Historique du Domaine" from vines over forty years old — pressed in a traditional Coquard press using only the tête de cuvée juices, then vinified parcel by parcel by gravity in oak barrels and tuns with indigenous yeasts, with malolactic fermentation deliberately blocked as a house policy. After 72 months of ageing sur latte and bottled without fining or filtration, the wine is disgorged at 3 g/L extra brut dosage, yielding a complex nose of red fruit, baked apple and dried fruit, and a palate that is airy, lively and nervous, balancing richness with freshness and genuine depth — qualities that earned it 93 points from Vinous in March 2024; the technical sheet for this vintage is dedicated "To Sacha," one of Jean-Baptiste's five daughters, who represent the announced fourth generation of the domaine.