From: Burgundy, France

Varietal: Pinot Noir

Sustainable. The Clos de Jeu, where Domaine Collotte has 50-year-old vines, shares the same exposition and soils as several Gevrey Grand Crus, as well as Clos Saint-Jacques, the supreme Gevrey Premier Cru. From soft limestone crinoidal soil and aged in 25% new French oak.

Tasting Notes: Layers of dark red fruit, flowers, and spices caress the palate in this supple, radiant wine. This possesses a lovely and harmonious mid-palate presence and plenty of depth.

Pairing: Are we tired of making our own sourdough yet? If so, may I suggest focaccia? Crispy Mushroom Focaccia by Erin Jeanne McDowell for the NYT will play up those umami and spice notes while creating a flavor explosion in your mouth. 

The following is an excerpt from Burgundy Report in April 2017: “Isabelle Collotte is my host, she is taking on more and more of the responsibility from her father Philippe – indeed it really is a family affair – her cousin works here and her mother and grandmother were both helping with bottling when I visited, whilst Philippe was washing out the barrels. Philippe used to sell plenty of wine in bulk – either before or after malo – but Isabelle wanted to commercialise everything – indeed many of their Marsannay vineyards are included in the dossier for promotion to 1er cru, so it made sense. To achieve that they needed to build extra space to store the wine that they were now keeping – elevages for the ‘better’ crus is long here – 12 months in barrel plus another in tank to clarify without intervention – so they needed space to stock two vintages in barrel/bulk. The new facility is higher in the village, the old part here (next to Fougeray) holds the fermentation tanks, assembled wine for bottling and the barrels of the shorter elevage wines such as the regionals – here normally about 10 months.

Plowing is the norm here, no herbicides. The grapes are triaged at the winery before 100% destemming into concrete tanks – with one week of cool maceration – “we love the thermal stability of concrete” – there is a little pigeage [punching down] early in fermentation and later only remontage [pumping over]. The colour is ‘fixed’ with a short period at 35°C – the wine slowly cooling in the tank before a pneumatic press and then into barrels.”