Wines of Chambolle-Musigny, Côte de Nuits, Burgundy

October 1, 2010

Philippines Wine Shop Clark Wine Center is pleased to share with you articles, news and information about wine, wine events, wine tasting and other topics related to wine and the appreciation of wine.

Leaving behind the vineyards of Gevrey-Chambertin and Morey-St-Denis we move on into the centre, geographically if not viticulturally, of the Côte de Nuits. Here we have two equally famous appellations, Chambolle-Musigny and Vougeot. The former is not particularly striking in terms of size compared to the other Côte de Nuits villages; Chambolle-Musigny is small, quite comparable in terms of area of vineyard to Gevrey-Chambertin, a little larger than Morey-St-Denis. Vougeot, however, is considerably smaller than many other communes, covering less than 70 hectares in total. As with any of these communes though it is all too easy, if the concentration lapses for a few moments, to drive past not only grand cru vineyards of considerable significance, but perhaps entire appellations without even noticing them. This may be true of Chambolle and her vineyards, but it is perhaps less true of Vougeot, small though it is. This commune is dominated by its gigantic clos and the historic abbey within, and its situation is such that it is difficult to pass through the appellation without noticing it, indeed without having to drive around it.

Chambolle-Musigny

I have already alluded to Chambolle in my guide to Gevrey and Morey; this is Gevrey’s queen, the commune regarded by most as being responsible for the most haunting and delicately perfumed wines of the Côte d’Or. The litany of writers willing to put their name to this assertion is considerable; I am certainly not going to take issue with them!

Again here the history is largely ecclesiastical, although the origin of the name is perhaps first worthy of our attention. Bisecting the commune is the Grône, a small stream which runs down from the hills above the village. Following heavy rain this small waterway would turn into a raging, flooding torrent, giving rise to the name champ bouillant (literally, “boiling field”), eventually evolving into Chambolle. For many centuries the vineyards were owned by the Cistercians of Citeaux, including Musigny which was which was donated to the monastery in 1110. As is usual this lengthy ownership ended with the Revolution. It was a century or so after the Terror that the name of Musigny, now a vineyard in the hands of many different owners, was appended to that of Chambolle. The year was 1878, some thirty-or-so years after the Gevrey authorities began the double-barrelled trend.

The run of grand cru sites is somewhat broken here, as Chambolle itself lies slightly higher up on the slope than the other Côte de Nuits villages, surrounded by a buffer of premier cru and village vineyards. Thus there are just two grands crus situated at either end of the commune, flanking the village, and without doubt Musigny (10.9 hectares), the longest established, is the best known. This climat sits at the southern end of the commune, squeezing in between the hills behind and the vast Clos de Vougeot below. There are two halves to the vineyard; to the north is Grand-Musigny, usually just referred to as Musigny, and to the south is Les Petits-Musigny. The former faces south-east with a gradient as high as 14% in places, and underfoot the soils are poor, stony, with limestone and some iron-rich clay. Much of this vineyard is in the ownership of Comte Georges de Vogüé, as is Les Petits-Musigny in its entirety. This latter section has deeper and richer soils, with more clay surrounding a few rocky prominences. Together the two sections of the Musigny vineyard are almost entirely red; this might come as no surprise to those who know that the village appellation of Chambolle-Musigny is 100% red, Pinot Noir only, obviously. Note, however, that the grands crus are appellations in their own right, and as such the regulations may differ from those that pertain to the surrounding communal and premier cru vineyards. The vineyard is almost entirely red; there is a small plot of Chardonnay planted, in the ownership of Comte Georges de Vogüé naturally, and although this was once blended with the red wine, today this wine is more likely to be bottled and sold as Musigny Blanc. Having said that, a period of replanting during the 1990s has left this section with lots of young vines, and so in many recent vintages it has been sold as a Bourgogne Blanc. Nevertheless, Musigny is one of only two grand cru vineyards that may yield both red and white cuvées.

On the other side of the village lies the second grand cru Bonnes Mares (15.1 hectares), with a small portion of this vineyard trespassing into the adjacent commune of Morey-St-Denis, abutting Morey’s Clos de Tart. At the Morey end the soils are richer, deeper in colour and marl, and naturally they are often described as having a character more akin to Morey than Chambolle. Moving towards the village of Chambolle the soils are finer, lighter, and there are fossilised oysters and limestone. As a consequence wines that originate from this end of the vineyard are often said to be lighter and more elegant. Historically, this is another vineyard with potential ecclesiastical origins, although I note there are numerous proposed origins for the name. Some, including Clive Coates writing in Côte d’Or (University of California Press, 1997), suggest that the name originates from the verb marer, meaning to cultivate, although he also acknowledges that it may be derived from the bonnes mères of the Bernadine order at Notre-Dame de Tart. Many others prefer the latter explanation, although the Drouhin family, noted Burgundy négociants, prefer to expound the myth of the vigneron who unearthed a sculpture representing the three goddesses of fecundity, the bonnes mères, in his field.

Overall the Chambolle-Musigny appellation covers about 190 hectares, and as I have already noted above it is 100% red, as is Bonnes-Mares, with only the grand cru Musigny itself permitted to produce a small amount of white wine. Of the 24 (25 if one considers Aux Combottes and Les Combottes as separate entities, as I have listed them on the right) premier cru vineyards here, there are few large enough to attract our attention, although that is not to say that many do not provide us with delicious wine. It is more a matter of defining the scope of this article, which is a Burgundy primer rather a comprehensive vineyard-by-vineyard guide. A number of the vineyards directly abut (or at least lie very close to) the grand cru vineyards, and it can be worth looking out for these. Les Amoureuses (5.4 hectares) and Les Charmes (9.5 hectares) are both large and noteworthy sites. The former lies just below Musigny and would almost certainly be the front runner in any contest for promotion to grand cru status in this commune; from a dedicated vigneron the wines can be excellent. Les Charmes meanwhile is not so exalted but provides very typical examples of Chambolle. Les Véroilles (0.4 hectares), a more recent elevation to premier cru status, runs along the top of Bonnes-Mares, and Les Fuées (4.4 hectares) lies at the southern end. La Combe d’Orveau (2.4 hectares), meanwhile, lies directly adjacent to Musigny on the border with the commune of Flagey-Echézeaux. Many of the other vineyards, particularly the smaller sites, are rarely seen, the exponents preferring to blend what they harvest and therefore market the wines as straight Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru.

Vougeot

How curious to move from a trio of communes where the grand cru vineyards are meticulously defined, row by row, dotted about the commune on only the choicest slopes, to one where the definition appears to lose all focus. This is the Clos de Vougeot, a fascinating site of great historical interest and of great importance to the Côte d’Or and to Burgundy as a whole, and yet one where all of a sudden those responsible for drawing out the margins of the grand crus seem to have misplaced their spectacles.

The history of the Clos de Vougeot, and thus of Vougeot the commune, runs back to the days of the Abbaye de Cluny, a powerful and wealthy ecclesiastical institution already mentioned several times in this Burgundy guide. Disenchanted with the decidedly impious and perhaps even debauched lifestyle found at such monasteries, a group of monks set out to establish a new order at Citeaux. It was these Cistercians, as they became known, that founded the abbey at Vougeot, gradually acquiring a handsome vineyard built up from donations made by local landowners. Today the abbey, shown above, sits within an impressive clos surrounded by vines. In the image above the vines in the foreground are within Echézeaux and Les Grands Echézeaux, the grand cru vineyards of Flagey-Echézeaux, a commune I will discuss in the next instalment of this guide. The vines and walls of the clos are visible in the distance, to the left of the abbey, whereas to the right is the village of Vougeot itself.

The order naturally suffered during the Revolutionary fervour at the end of the 18th century; the abbey and associated land were confiscated, and the vineyard was auctioned off as a single lot. It was during the 19th century that the parcellation began, kick-started by the Napoleonic laws of inheritance. Today the buildings, restored after World War II when they served as a hiding place for many, remain impressive, and they are home to the celebrated Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, a wonderful public relations machine which hosts fine dinners in the monastery, featuring the local wines of course. The vineyard, however, has become greatly divided; at first one owner became just six, but the divisions continued and the numbers escalated, and today there are more than 80 separate proprietors, some with only a few rows – or part-rows – to their name. For a detailed assessment of exactly who owns what, I would recommend you take a look within the pages of Anthony Hanson’s Burgundy (Faber & Faber, 1999).

Vougeot: Vineyards

The Clos de Vougeot vineyard dominates this commune (at 50.6 hectares it accounts for more than 80% of the vines), and there is just a tiny appendage of premier cru and village climats to the north of this expanse. Running from the commune’s boundary with Chambolle-Musigny at the top, with the great Musigny grand cru on the other side of the wall, the vines run all the way down the slope to the RN74. As can be seen in the other commune profiles, the normal progression is to move from grand to premier cru, and then to village vineyards as you near the road. Even just at first glance this site would appear to be too loosely drawn, following the wall of the clos rather than any more exacting logic. For those that might think this a point of pedantry, there are a number of other communes that set an appropriate precedent here, where a classification or appellation might stop just a few rows short of a physical boundary such as a wall, path or road. Indeed, this is the opinion of many Burgundy critics and commentators, who point out that if appellations are supposed to reflect origin and terroir, why does this particular grand cru incorporate six different soil types? Near the top the soils, slope and drainage may well be favourable, but nearer the bottom the soils are heavier, the drainage less adequate, and some would argue the land would be better planted with beet than the vine. Writing in the aforementioned tome Burgundy, Anthony Hanson recalls the time he found one grower cultivating a fine crop of asparagus between his vines. The fact that Clos de Vougeot was the source of the first ever and also the cheapest ever bottle of grand cru Burgundy I have purchased – a bottle that then went on to disappoint – would seem in keeping with these failings.

In my opinion the Clos de Vougeot needs a detailed examination and reclassification, with areas of the vineyard being downgraded to premier cru and village status as required. There should be no inherent problem with this as a concept, as again there is already a precedent in other individual vineyards, such as Corton’s Clos des Marechaudes, which is divided into one-third grand cru and two-thirds premier cru, and any number of other sites which are part premier cru and part communal appellation. But the Clos de Vougeot plays a vital role in Burgundy, and too many interested parties have something to lose from the process; the reclassification will, I suspect, never happen. And so the responsibility falls at the feet of the consumer; choose very carefully when buying here.

As for the premier cru and village sites these can be dealt with quickly. The former total only four, on the northern border of the clos, and as with Morey (but not Chambolle, as described above) these – and the communal vineyards – may yield red or white wines. With a less auspicious grand cru to its name, it is perhaps not surprising that these other Vougeot vineyards are also not so interesting. It is perhaps best to draw this review to a close with our minds still focused on Burgundy’s most famous but not necessarily most worthwhile clos.

Source:           http://www.thewinedoctor.com/regionalguides/burgundypart09.shtml

Clark Wine Center was built in 2003 by Hong Kong-based Yats International Leisure Philippines to become the largest wine shop in Philippines supplying Asia’s wine lovers with fine vintage wines at attractive prices.  Today, this wine shop in Clark Philippines offers over 2000 selections of fine wines from all major wine regions in the world.  As a leading wine supplier in Philippines, Pampanga’s Clark Wine Center offers an incomparable breadth of vintages, wines from back vintages spanning over 50 years.  Clark Wine Center is located in Pampanga Clark Freeport Zone adjacent to Angeles City, just 25 minutes from Subic and 45 minutes from Manila.

Wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Alsace, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Chile and Argentina etc. are well represented in this Clark Wine Shop.

For more information, email Wine@Yats-International.com or visit http://www.ClarkWineCenter.com