Things are very busy at Vincent Girardin’s base in Meursault; not only are they about to start harvesting, they’ve also bought a new domaine.
First the harvesting; it’s starting for Vincent Girardin with some chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune, some others are already brining in the first grapes. The storm on Sunday that delivered hail to northern Santenay and parts of Chassagne (‘just’ Morgeot mainly) mainly left a lot of fruit needing to picked sooner rather than later. The rest of the domaine’s vines will be harvested between next week and the end of the month.
Another grower confirms this, telling me:
There’s rot and it’s ok with the cold weather but there’s great heterogeneity. Anyway in general everyone is planning to pick earlier than they had first expected so harvest will probably be over by Oct 1st
Let’s see…
Now back to the enlarged Domaine Vincent Girardin – actually the new part is still a separate entity because it’s in Beaujolais – but there are 20 new hectares of vines from the estate La Tour du Bief in Chénas:
All parcels of the twenty hectares of the estate La Tour du Bief are in the village of Chénas with “lieux-dits” Les Caves, La Rochelle, Les Vérillats, Le Bief and La Tour du Bief.
A rigorous, impeccable farming plan allowed us to find an exceptional genetic reserve, with some of the vines being more than 80 years old. What more can be expected when the ambition is to restore life to this estate by producing exceptional wines?
Today, my goal is to continue the tradition of the production of great Moulin-à-Vent wines that, in the last century, competed with the great villages of the Côte de Nuits. With their structure and complexity linked to a potentially important capacity for ageing, wines from Moulin-à-Vent were always cited as examples and with age, it’s said that they “Pinotent”, meaning getting closer to their Burgundian (Pinot) neighbors by evoking aromas of cherry, matured fruits, spices and truffle.
A project of classification of the best soils as “Premier Crus” as in Burgundy is about to be studied to return this great wine to nobility. The parcels of the estate will be affected by this classification.
Winemaking is traditional, followed by ageing partly in wood foudres of 50hl and then in Burgundian barrels of 228 liters. Wines are neither fined nor filtered in order to give them as much complexity and life as is natural.
(Vincent’s press release.)
There is one response to “latest vintage update & windmills in meursault for vincent girardin…”
I’ve heard that Faiveley has purchased Château du Moulin-à-Vent, but cannot currently confirm it.
Hi Claude,
I read (I think last year) that the owner had sold and retired, but that Faiveley had only taken a small part of ownership. Nothing on the wires yet about assuming control…
Cheers. Bill