Great Wines of Burgundy

Vineyard:
Burgundy - Côte de Nuits - Chambolle-Musigny. The Les Charmes Premier Cru is rooted at the heart of the Chambolle hillside with its steep, east-facing slope. The loose, limestone soil lies close to the bedrock.

Surface area: 1.01 hectares
Grape varieties: pinot noir
Planted in: 1970
Altitude: 270 metres

Working the vine:
November: Vines pruned. Until late February: Vine shoots burned. March: final pruning and repair work. April - May: ruthless de-budding and tying. June: tying and clipping vines. July or early August, before veraison: leaves on all plots are thinned by hand, with a green harvest to provide the vine stock with natural aeration, limit the yield, and help the grapes to ripen.

Soil:
The soil is tilled at the end of winter, and raked during the season to keep natural vegetation growth under control.
In June and July, the soil is turned to clear the areas of the vineyard most affected by excess vegetation.

Crop treatments:
The vineyard does not use herbicides, insecticides, or chemical anti-rot treatments.
Sexual confusion techniques are used to combat grape moth.
We do not use any artificial fertilizer. We believe in responsible viticulture, based on observation and treatments for mildew and rot.

Harvest:
Picked by hand and sorted at the vine. Transported in small boxes. Grapes sorted a second time in the fermenting room.

Winemaking process:
The grapes are stripped and transferred to vats. They are then fermented at a controlled temperature (32°C maximum), with the vats being cooled if necessary to control when fermentation begins. Remontage is performed, followed by daily pigeage. The wine is removed from the vats and pressed. Before being placed into casks, the wine spends 3-4 days in vats to allow the lees to separate. The wine is siphoned into oak barrels using gravity, rather than a pump.

Maturation:
33% of wine is matured for 18 months in new oak barrels, with the rest in barrels that have contained one or two wines. The wine is racked once using a hand bellows upon completion of secondary fermentation. When mature, barrels containing the same variety of wine are blended in a single vat using a racking process. We bottle the wine ourselves at the vineyard, without it being clarified or filtered in any way.

The wine’s characteristics:
The Les Charmes Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru is a formidable classic. It lives up to its name and is an example of the best that Burgundy has to offer. Its refined elegance lies on a foundation of a fleshy, concentrated palate and, when still young, assertive tannins that mellow with age. Full bodied and round, the wine delivers an explosion of red berries.

Pairing with food:
Poultry (duck, guinea fowl, etc.), red meat (tournedos), cheese.