Tasted with Isabelle Collotte in Marsannay-la-Côte, 19 April 2017.

Earl Collotte  
44 Rue de Mazy
21160 Marsannay-la-Côte
Tel: +33 9 63 50 33 42

Rue de Mazy is virtually the ‘High Street’ of Marsannay, and a relatively small entrance on this High Street indicates the names of both Domaine Fougeray de Beauclair and Domaine Collotte – they are actually cousins – it is the Collottes who occupy the first courtyard which you must drive through if you are visiting Fougeray de Beauclair – it seems that I’ve previously made a mistake in not stopping 20 metres earlier …

Domaine de Collotte covers 15 hectares, mainly in Marsannay – there is a little Fixin, Gevrey and Chambolle too – of which 14 hectares are currently in production – the rest is in the process of replanting. 2016 is the first vintage for Gevrey-Chambertin En Champs, and 2017 will see the addition of some Evocelles too.

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 early in fermentation and later only remontage. 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.

The wines…

These wines together with the 2014 tasted in the larger tasting, here, show a quality that I find amazing for such a little-known name – and Marsannays that are readily available for €15 from their small and newly refurbished tasting room. Great value and super quality at this address!

The last of the 2015s were all being bottled this week – one wasn’t shown as it was bottled only a few hours before. The first wine was sampled directly from the bottling line, and the rest from tank:

2015 Marsannay Combereau
Here the nose is much higher toned – but pleasantly so and not a bit volatile. More intensity to the palate, more direct in shape and with great cherry fruit of bite – a super finish too. Excellent.

2015 Marsannay Clos de Jeu
Here a much bigger nose – of broader, meatier fruit. Much more volume in the mouth, fresh, almost chewy flavor, this is a muscular wine and one with a little more tannin. Very good, potentially even better.