Profile: Alice & Olivier De Moor

2.3.2017billn

Tasted in Courgis with Alice de Moor, 24 January 2017.

Alice & Olivier De Moor
4 rue Jacques Ferrand
89800 Courgis
Tel: +33 3 86 41 47 94
www.aetodemoor.fr

It’s a maze of walkways, corridors and cellars here chez de Moor. Eventually we end up in their tasting room via a courtyard and some snow!

The cellar comes from Olivier’s grandmother, which the pair bought when she died.

The first vintage here is 1995; Olivier started planting vines with his uncle in 1989 but it was in 1994 that they really began work on the domaine. They began with 3 hectares of Chablis and some Bourgogne in Chitry. Since last October they also have two Chablis 1ers – Vau de Vey and Mont de Milieu – now the domaine has almost 10 hectares, including a little St.Bris too.

There is also a label here Les Vendangeurs Masques – this is the négoce part of the business. Here there are some Bourgognes and some wines from the south too – for instance there was some voigner. They only buy grapes in bio, and they have been bio themselves here since 2005. They were certified in 2008. Herbicides were already gone by the end of 1990s – “The young vines were vigorous so we had lots to do. We work the soil, only hand harvesting, utilising only local yeasts and quite along elevage.

They have sold to Berry Bros & Rudd (in London) since about 2002 – which where I first met their wines – today they also sell to Caves Pyrenne in the UK. About 60% is exported today.

Alice on 2016:
2016 brought frost on the bourgogne, then hail, then hail again – on the bourgogne! We also lost about half in Courgis. In total we lost about 80%. Fortunately the 2015s are still in the cellar so will now sell theses over two years. We finished our harvest by doing over 9,000 kilometres in our ‘Camionette’ to collect grapes from all over France from friends – to make our cellar look a little less empty!

Alice on 2015:
2015 also brought a little hail, we started our harvest on the 4th of September, so it was also a little complicated.

The wines…

Alice likes her Foudres of 24 hl – Austrian wood. And I really like the packaging here, nice labels and the bottles topped with a narrow band of yellow wax. The first 4 bottles, were filled between November and December.

2015 Aligoté
1/4 elevage in foudres. ‘When aligoté is not ripe you know! When chardonnay is not ripe, there’s always a solution!’
A round nose, rather cushioned for an aligoté but also very attractive. Supple, a little rich, faintly saline a growing fresh line of flavour. This is really something – not easy to say aligotè – this is about the terroir – brilliant!

2015 Vendangeurs Masques, Bourgogne
Grapes From a fried who bought a domaine in bio near Auxerre
A nice fresh nose – it’s a very pretty purity of aroma, almost a hint of menthol. Full, round, some richness of texture. A growing minerality in the mid-palate, saline edged – if I told you that this was a good Chablis, blind, you would be very happy. Super wine.

2015 Vendangeurs Masques, Chablis
2 parcels, two suppliers – some from Courgis, and another with younger, more vigorous vines – but this part was hailed in 2015. Luckily here it was more the leaves than the grapes that were hit – also it was windy after the hail so no porriture arrived. The second parcel is in Beru.
Ooh, this has an attractive fruit – yellow pineapple – and slowly more of an impression of peach with a fine, fresh, clarity. In the mouth an almost sweet and sour complexity with plenty of salinity – nice texture and really an impressive complexity. This is attractive, fresh fruited, not exactly classic but absolutely delicious wine.

2015 Chablis l’humeur du temps…
An assembly of multiple domaine parcels.
Here is a pretty and fine, fresh complexity – perhaps a suggestion of quince fruit. More direct, if less silky, a growing intensity to this linear, mouth-watering, brightly citrus wine – it’s an agrume complexity here. Yum!

The following wines sampled directly from tank:

2015 Bourgogne Chitry
Same parcel as the aligoté, racked just before Christmas, maybe bottling in another month. 50% foudre elevage.
A little tighter, good mid-width of riper fruit. Some gas. Growing intensity in the mouth, fine, fresh, and very Chablis in style, with a little creamy oak in the middle. A great finishing burst of flavour…

2015 Aligote Vieilles-Vignes
Here from St.Bris. Part planted on this parcel also with the sauvignon. Degassed last week, planned to bottle tomorrow, but it’s too cold.
Golden, a wide nose, a little fruity. Really mineral, here, layered, with a super line, Chablis-esque flavour. Mouth-watering and mineral.

2015 Chablis Clardy
One parcel, South-east facing on marne.
Nicely vibrant fruit here. Gas. Fine volume, a growing saline-edged and vibrant fruit. This is simply delicious, more delicious than t is obviously Chablis – at least until the mid-plate and finish where it’s classically saline and very, very pretty. Yum!

2015 Chablis Rosettes
A 1 ha parcel, again on marne, south-east facing with a slope, hand worked due to steepness. ‘It ripens very slowly.’
Ooh, again vibrant with lovely fruit, but here more mineral. Full, more volume, more mineral, beautifully layered, simply top! Super length too!

2015 St.Bris
Deep, sweet, with a soft impression of texture and a slowly growing, floral note – a little more cepage here but the aromas are really well presented. Rather sweet fruit in the mouth, silky, big flavoured, really lots of action, all the good bits and none of the bad bits of sauvignon. Clearly a sweet style, but delicious – 4.6 of sugar still in here.

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