Burgundy
François Mikulski - New
Meursault
Wine
François Mikulski is in the top Echelon of Meursault producers. His wines are bright, mineral, racy and incredibly fine.
With a Polish name and no traditions to keep in mind Mikulski and his wife Marie-Pierre were free to create something completely new when they founded Domaine Mikulski in 1992. The most obvious result was the labels for the bottles; far from the traditional burgundian label, Mikulski wanted a label that looked like something hand written believing that it is what is inside the bottle that is most important.
He gained some work experience with Josh Jensen at Calera Wine Company in California, and has also exchanged ideas with Ted Lemon, who is winemaker at Littorai, when the latter was working at Domaine Roulot in Meursault.
In the vines Mikulski is a practitioner of lutte raisonnée, a system of cultivation that is essentially organic and non-interventionist. Lutte raisonnée entails holistic and balanced viticultural management with primary focus on the microbial health of the soil and the biodiversity of the vineyard.
After meticulous triage in the vineyards, Mikulski de-stems his Chardonnay and presses it very lightly followed by a complete débourbage (where the must is clarified prior to fermentation).
After a fermentation that typically lasts about 15 days, the new wine is racked into French oak barrels in which they undergo malolactic fermentation and élevage (aging) for a total of about 15-18 months. François uses only 20% new oak with his white wines.
Mikulski's wines have star status and can be found in the finest restaurants and also in the edgiest wine bars throughout France, Europe and the United States. Allen Meadows of Burghound is a particular fan and regularly gives great praise to his wines.
Wines"For me the best style is minerality. In white wine I like purity, minerality and of course with minerality a certain acidity, just to make the wine exciting. When you have finished your glass you want another one. That means it refreshing, exciting. That is what I like in a wine, even if it is an Aligoté or a Muscadet."... François Mikulski
Domaine Christophe
Chablis
Background
Sebastien
Christophe is a name that I have been hearing for quite some time and
from very passionate wine lovers. Sebastien is energetic and quizzical,
perhaps even restless but it easy to see he has that special 'je ne
sais quois' found in all the best winemakers and despite rave reviews
from the Revue du Vin de France, Guide Hachette and Clive Coates (a
starred domaine in his updated "Wines of Burgundy") he remains very
humble and focused.
Wine-wise he conducts the alcoholic and
malolactic fermentation in steel, and ages the wine in steel (with a
mix of older barrels for the 1er Crus). He looks for elegance, length,
purity and minerality in his wines and has extremely exacting standards
with the result that the quality is sensational...and he is only 35
years old.
Wine
The domaine and its vineyards are
in the commune of Fyé, across the river from the town of Chablis. The
hills are steep here and overlook Les Clos, Blanchots and Montee de
Tonnerre. I found the biggest suprise in his cellar was his Chablis
Vielles Vignes made from two parcels, both circa 50 years of age; one
above 1er Cru Fourchaume and another parcel above Les Clos, Grand Cru
all raised in stainless steel allowing the terroir to shine through,it
displays beautiful bracing acidity and vibrancy. It also has that
attractive green and platinum shimmer and is particularly concentrated
and suave. A terrific village, that quite frankly is easily of 1er Cru
standard.
This is an excellent estate with wines worth following.
Cécile Tremblay
Vosne-Romanée
Background
Cecile Tremblay is a relation of the Noellats and the Confurons in Vosne-Romanée and is the grand-niece of the late Henri Jayer so her roots are profoundly entrenched in top quality Burgundy. Her parents, however, were not vignerons so the small family domaine was rented out.
Cecile started to take back some of her inheritance and so from the 2000 vintage she has made wine - first with her then boyfriend, Pascal Roblet, in Bligny-Les-Beaune and now back on her own in Vosne-Romanée. She has been hailed as the next big thing by Clive Coates, David Schildnecht and Allen Meadows and they have all given stunning reviews to her wines with the result that they are incredibly hard to find, for example she has the same Parisian agent as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti!
Cecile currently has the use of 3 of the 6 hectares that she owns and from them makes the following wines: Nuits Saint George cuvée Albuca, Morey Saint Denis 'Tres Girard',Vosne Romanée Vieilles Vignes, Chambolle Musigny Les Feusselottes 1er cru, Vosne Romanée Les Beaumonts 1er cru, Vosne Romanée les Rouges du Dessus 1er cru, Echezeaux Du-Dessus and Chapelle-Chambertin.
Wine
I'm sure that you'll agree that it's a stunning portfolio and it's staggering to consider that it represents just half of her holdings, this will expand further as existing rental arrangements expire.
The winemaking as you can imagine is meticulous; The grapes picked into small boxes containing only 4 to 5 kilos each to ensure their integrity and on arrival at the winery they are cooled and after a pre fermentation maceration the alcoholic fermentation begins in old large wooden casks using only indigenous yeasts. Temperatures are closely monitored and fermentation lasts on average 28 to 35 days. After pressing the wines are matured in barrel for 15 to 18 months and are neither fined nor filtered before bottling which is done according to the lunar calendar.
The result of Cecile's extremely rigorous classification (and de-classification) of all the wines prior to bottling is that the production of all the wines is tiny, some just a few hundred bottles...these are extremely rare wines and so available quantities are unfortunately miniscule. Most importantly though; qualitatively this domain is right at the top of Burgundy.
Philippe Pacalet
Bourgogne
Background
Philippe
Pacalet had a solid upbringing in the wine trade, learning from mentors
like Jules Chauvet and his uncle, Marcel Lapierre. As he did not
inherit vineyards of his own, Pacalet has abandoned the idea of
ownership and prefers to rely exclusively on rented vineyards to make
his wine, thus giving him the option to hand-select vineyards that he
deems to have the most interesting terroir throughout the Cote de
Beaune and the Cote de Nuits. Philippe's approach to winemaking is
rooted in simplicity. He opposes interventionalist techniques and goes
to great lengths to ensure quality such as manually filling every
bottle by gravity and inserting every cork with traditional corking
tool. Pacalet's wines are well regarded for their aromatic purity and
lively nature.
The selection of parcels was originally guided by
several criteria: the use of Pinot Fin (a qualitative plant giving
small yields), average age of each parcel of 45 years, orientation,
exposition and quality of the viticultural work. Today Philippe Pacalet
works seven hectares of vineyards, where organic work is done and
focuses on retaining their own unique flavour signature. Thus the
wine-making follows a non-interventionist code as it is conducted
without sulphur, using the stems of the grapes, with natural yeasts
during fermentation (which takes place in wooden vat for three to four
weeks) and finally matured in (mainly used) barrels on the lees without
racking. Pacalet says he makes wine like his grandfather. As far as he
is concerned he is a scientist and an artist,respecting nature by
trying to understand its processes, identifying how best to liberate
those raw materials that great terroir confers.
In 2007, after
years spent between three cellars, in Beaune, in Gevrey-Chambertin and
in Bouzes-les-Beaune (he shared space with Michel Couvreur’s whiskies),
he bought spacious facilities in the heart of Beaune where he vinifies
and ages his wines, and where his offices are also located. The
building belonged to the de Montille family, but it was probably built
for a wine merchant in the 19th century, around the time when the
railroad got to Beaune from Dijon (1849.)
Wine
Pacalet
describes his approach as old school. “I work exclusively with old
vines, harvested late and fermented with natural yeasts, no destemming,
very little new wood [never more than 25%] and hand bottled, generally
with no filtration, after a long élevage. While I don't bottle barrel
by barrel, pretty much every thing that I do is designed to let the
wines make themselves."
Catherine & Claude Maréchal
Bligny-les-Beaune
Background
Claude Maréchal is a winemaker who most people have not heard about, especially outside France.
Now in his forties and having befriended the late Henri Jayer, he follows in his mentor's footsteps using the same meticulous approach to quality in the vineyards and the cellar. Of course he doesn't work the same exaulted vineyards as Jayer did (he doesn't even have any land in the Cotes de Nuits) but his methods are the same and the results are brilliant.
Claude's father was a cereal farmer with a few vineyard holdings around Bligny-les-Beaune, a small village east of Beaune. Claude and his wife Catherine reside there now and it is also where they make their wines. Claude's passion for vineyard work has meant he has been able to piece together a good sized estate by renting vineyards throughout the Côte de Beaune.
His principles in the vineyards are straightforward: the vineyards are plowed, no herbicides are used, treatments are kept to a minimum and the pruning is severe to keep yields low.
Wine
Vinification takes place in open wooden vats, all grapes are totally destemmed (‡ la Jayer), and fermentation is not induced by adding cultured yeast, so it can take a few days to start (a "natural" cold pre-maceration) using it's own. New barrels are added every year for maturation, but their proportion stays very low in order to produce wines where fruit dominates.It is important to stress that there is no recipe here. Winemaking follows a general theme, but techniques may be changed from year to year to suit the conditions of the vintage.
Claude's wines are not expensive but, due to their quality, are incredibly hard to find. There are small quantities available for sale and so I humbly suggest you get in quickly.
Bernard et Thierry Glantenay
Volnay
Background
Thierry
Glantenay has taken over at his family domaine and is now producing
exquisite, ethereal Volnay from it’s best terroirs and full, powerful
Pommard from it’s best terroirs. Have a look below at the wines on
offer and it’s incredible to see that the Glantenay’s posses most of
the great red terroirs from the Côte de Beaune. Thierry also has a
small but brilliantly sited plot of Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les
Folatières which has 80 year old vines. He only produces a few hundred
bottles a year though and has loyal customers for it; I have put up my
hand as the wine is fabulous, he poured it for me at the end of our
tasting and I could still taste it as I drove the car back down the
hill out of Volnay and back to Beaune.
Unfortunately they don't
have much to offer as the domaine is only 7 hectares but importantly
they farm their own vines and make their own wines ensuring the best
available quality. Such is this domains reputation that grapes and
juice have regularly been sold to some of the top Burgundy negociant
houses (including Dominique Laurent). Thierry would like to eventually
bring an end to this as he would prefer to bottle everything himself—
and all his customers would like more wine!
A reserved and
gentle character, he was at pains to explain that he doesn’t practice
extreme viticulture, preferring to achieve balance and harmony in the
vineyard. Likewise in the winery, everything is done gently but with
perfection. Thierry trained as an engineer and so is always asking
questions of himself and his methods, perfecting things with each
effort.
Across the board these wines are precise, focused and
reflective of their underlying terroir, with great sappiness and depth
in the mid-palates, coupled with brilliant structural integrity that
makes them, to me, amongst the finest wines made in the southern half
of Burgundy.
Wine
Thierry is a meticulous and
talented winemaker, who uses no more than twenty-five percent new oak
for any of his top wines, allowing for a beautiful synthesis of pure
fruit, delicate framing and a beautifully transcribed expression of
terroir in each and every wine. There is a refined elegance and
perfumed precision to the Glantenay wines that is very special, and is
most impressive when working with the sometimes rather youthfully
“sauvage” elements that can be found in young Pommard. Thierry is one
of the stars of the Côte de Beaune, and because he is working in the
village of Volnay, rather than Vosne-Romanée or Gevrey-Chambertin, his
brilliant wines also offer extraordinary value in today’s crazy world
of Burgundy pricing.
Eric de Suremain
Monthelie
If you want to visit Eric de Suremain, you will have to find him in the vineyards. He's not the formal type of bloke who hangs out at tastings and worries about wine ratings.
WineEric is all about his vines and his terroir and it shows in his wines which are luminous and sumptuous.
Monthelie is a little hamlet. It straddles the borders of Volnay and Meursault on hillside vineyards that get excellent exposure to the all important ripening sun. Stylistically, the wines are perfumed and open like Volnay but perhaps without the precision found in Volnay's best sites.
I find them floral, pretty and very delicious and you can add purity and minerality when talking about de Suremain's wines, some of the best I have tasted in the Cote de Beaune.
For a long time, the wines of Monthelie were part of neighbor Volnay. In fact, before Monthelie got its own appellation back in 1937, the wines were labelled as Volnay or Pommard. Eric's best Monthelie comes from a vineyard named “Sur La Velle”. It is considered the best vineyard in Monthelie and no surprise because the grapes rub shoulders with those from Volnay. It is a terrific wine.
Eric de Suremain took his vineyards biodynamic in 1996. He was way ahead of his time, and he still is.
He practices pigeage and has a gentle hand in the cellar - his yields are low and his vines are old - he is restrained when it comes to new wood and I can attest that his wines are long-lived having tasted some older vintages from his cellar. A 1999 Monthelie Rouge was fabulous; muti-dimensional and just starting to develop.
His philosophy of winemaking sounds simple, but is really profound: "there are no small vintages, it is just the balance which counts." This means that he is a flexible winemaker who adjusts for the variables in every vintage.
He doesn't try to match the wine to his winemaking, he matches his winemaking to the wine, and it is that skillful balancing act that makes his wine seamless.
If you are looking for a Bugundy to make you smile then these are the ones.
Maconnais