Wine & Spirits - October 2021 - 31

New Names
to Watch for
in a Changing
Burgundy
Climate
Maranges
Domaine de
la Cassiopée (Hugo
Mathurin and
Talloulah Dubourg)
Fiona Leroy
Nicolas Perrault
Elodie Roy
Domaine des Rouges
Queues (Isabelle
and Jean-Yves Vantey)
Monthélie
Domaine Changarnier
Domaine
Dubuet-Monthelie
Domaine Dujardin
Domaine Florent
Garaudet
St-Romain
Domaine Henri
& Gilles Buisson
ful not to mow the verges early in the season because of
the number of small birds such as larks which nest there.
The vineyards are grassed between the rows to minimise
water evaporation but tilled underneath the vines. And
they are experimenting with trial plots for future development,
testing cover crops planted and then rolled back
into the soil, or grafts onto rootstock in the vineyards
rather than at the nursery.
In the Côte de Nuits, interest is growing in the Côte
de Nuits-Villages-a non-contiguous appellation separated
into two parts, one in Brochon to the north, with
the majority in the southern end of the Côte across the
villages of Prémeaux, Corgolin and Comblanchien. Now,
for the first time, multiple producers are making singlesite
bottlings. Pascal Pernot, who is transforming domaine
Pernot Père & Fils from sound to scintillating, makes a
superb bottling of La Croix Violette in Brochon, as does
the longer-established Laurent Fournier of Domaine Jean
Fournier, while, further south, micro-négociant Camille
Thiriet offers both Les Retraits and Aux Montagnes.
Thiriet and her partner, Matt Chittick, who set up Maison
MC Thiriet in 2016 with just a handful of barrels of simple
appellations (Bourgogne Blanc and Côte de Nuits-Villages),
have expanded to interesting sites further afield in
the Bourgogne Franche-Comté region. They make a pure
savagnin from Arbois and a delicious white from Vézelay,
where Thiriet's grandmother was a teacher.
In fact, whether driven by climate or the price of land
(or both), many of Burgundy's interesting new projects
are based outside the Côte d'Or. Some involve Côte d'Or
Côte de
Nuits-Villages
Domaine Jean Fournier
Jérôme Galeyrand
Pernot Père & Fils
Camille Thiriet
Mâconnais
Domaine
de Thalie (Bray)
La Vigne Mouton (Bray)
Frantz Chagnoleau
(Pierreclos)
Vineyards
of the Yonne
Yann Boissenet
Domaine
Saint Pancrace
Domaine des Sénons
producers who want to expand their portfolio in the direction
of more affordable wines: thus, Lafon, Leflaive and
Jadot in the Mâconnais and many more in the Beaujolais.
Importers may make use of these established names from
the Côte d'Or to supply their needs from elsewhere in Burgundy,
but what a shame it would be to ignore the brilliance
of some of the small estates making Mâcon-Villages,
such as Domaine de Thalie and La Vigne Mouton in farflung
Bray, or Frantz Chagnoleau in Pierreclos.
Chagnoleau, who cut his vinous teeth working with
Olivier Merlin in Mâcon-La Roche Vineuse, has put
together a domaine with his partner, increasingly working
with their own vines, owned or farmed. These come
mostly from relatively unknown corners of the Mâconnais,
including their Clos St-Pancras and a new project to plant
aligoté, savagnin and pinot noir, along with chardonnay
in a plot of Mâcon-Cruzille, Au Quin Château, which is
also referenced by the longer-established Julien Guillot of
Domaine des Vignes du Maynes.
In the north, the superb value of Chablis may be a little
bit under threat: all producers are putting up prices
for 2020 in the light of the certain shortfall in 2021, but,
even so, the quality-price ratio remains very reasonable
by Burgundy standards. Regular visitors to Chablis may
easily make the small detour to the appellations of St-Bris
(for sauvignon) and Irancy (pinot noir) but there has been
not much interest from the wider wine world in the other
appellations of the " Grand Auxerrois " and other vineyards
of the Yonne department. Now, this may be changing.
Take the stories of Xavier Julien (Domaine Saint Pancrace)
and Yann Boissenet, for example. Neither comes
from a winemaking family. Xavier, from Auxerre, caught
the bug and, having worked for producers in Vézelay and
Chablis, decided to invest in vineyards closer to home, in
the village of Vaux, which falls within the appellation of
Côtes d'Auxerre, planting his vines at high density even
where he needed a crowbar to break into the rock in order
to get the vines into the ground. His best vineyard site,
bizarrely, is called La Côte d'Or.
Further north, Yann Boissenet decided to branch out
from the cereal crops which were his family's principal
activity. In 2008, he decided to add vineyards to his
portfolio and now has a small holding of just over sevenand-a-half
acres in the village of Volgre, on the banks of
the river Tholon, just south of the old city of Joigny. He
makes attractive chardonnay and pinot blanc, to which
he has added a spectacular and refreshing rosé, made
from pinot gris.
Closer in to Joigny, Alain and Julien Vignot own the
lion's share of the vines on the celebrated Côte St-Jacques
hillside overlooking the city itself. The latest development,
still a few kilometers further to the north, is the Domaine
de Sénons, reclaiming vineyard land abandoned after phylloxera.
There may be no direct link to climate changes in
some of these new plantings, but it likely plays a role in
the pace and direction of Burgundy's recent expansions.
Writing this has made me thirsty. The potential to
make better wines than before on less-hallowed ground
has opened up a whole new array of exciting wines. I could
be tempted by a Mâcon-Cruzille Aragonite from Domaine
Julien Guillot-not one of the new brigade: The property
has been in existence for the last 1,111 years. l
Oc TO b ER 2021
WINE & SPIR IT S
31
Wine & Spirits - October 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - October 2021
