Tasted with Aline Valor in Chichée, 10 January 2022.
Domaine Jacques Picq et ses Enfants
3 Rue de Talmeau
89800 Chichée
Tel: +33 6 22 29 46 72
Chichée is home to plenty of ‘Picqs’ but despite, for instance, the Domaine Didier Picq being only a few hundred metres away, these Picqs, as far as they can tell, are not even cousins…
Still, there have been 4 generations of the family here, today exploiting a little more than 15 hectares – “But we’re discrete!” smiles Aline. And commercially that’s true – nearly 90% of their production goes to the Beaune négociants – but they’ve also been bottling for some local sales since 1983. “It’s 10-15,000 bottles per year – we prefer to be in the vines than being in the office.” That said, they have a nice tasting room – by appointment only!
It’s three siblings who run the domaine, Aline and her two brothers – Aline’s been here 20 years but her youngest brother has been part of the team for just the last 5 years – there’s one tâcheron too to help in the vines. “We’ve been selling to, pretty much, the same clientele, with a few new ones, for a number of years. We don’t salons or fairs as we have enough sales, and as of right now we have almost nothing to sell…!”
As an old family of Chichée, it comes as no surprise that their vines are here too. They have an impressive 4 hectares of the local 1er cru – Vaucoupin – but at one time their grandfather had more than 11 hectares here. More than half of this surface was, many years ago, sold to Long-Depaquit. The grandfather kept cows too, “It wasn’t just wine in those days. Most families couldn’t live from just that.”
Aline on their last two vintages:
“2021 brought a bit less than one-third of a normal harvest – but 2020 wasn’t bad. We have some good parcels and in 2021 some brought us 40 hl/ha but others just 5 hl/ha – the cellar is nearly empty. I like the 2020s a lot, almost a bit more than 2019 which I like more now than at the start. We make rounder wines here typically – it’s all stainless-steel elevage – I really like the 2018s too, they are lovely right now.”
The wines…
A small but excuisite set of 2020s…
Bottled at the end of July – all with DIAM – this the first vintage with DIAN. It’s only old vines here 60-70 years old…
That’s a nice freshness – lots of yellow citrus – slightly round but always fresh. Yes, concentrated but vibrant too – love the energy here – a mineral energy. That’s a super wine – really impressive, mobile and long – delicious! Bravo!
2020 Chablis 1er Vaucoupin
Narrower but deeper and more vibrant nose. Also concentrated, a small but attractive touch of green – more lime than herbal – growing wider and melting over the palate. Really a very tasty and layered delivery of citrus flavour. A step up but not a really large step up from the Chablis – but that’s how good the Chablis is here!