The château, pictured this week.
Laurent Gotti’s fine site (here, in French) this week broke the news on another, much lower profile, domaine/vines purchase in Burgundy – that of the Château de la Commaraine in Pommard, and it’s 3.75 hectare monopoly of the Clos de la Commaraine – Pommard 1er Cru, no less. The sellers were the Jaboulet-Vercherre family, the wine having been made, for some time, by Louis Jadot.
At first sight, this is also an expensive acquisition – approaching a million euros per hectare – for ‘only’ 1er cru land, and relatively under the radar premier cru land at that – we are not talking Rugiens here. It is not simply a vineyard purchase though, there is a (externally, at least) fine-looking château included in the price, a building that alone would have an asking price over €1 million. Gotti notes that the new owners plan this to be a luxury leisure retreat, so their strategy is as much about oenotourisme (the local buzzword for a couple of years now) as it is about wine.
So it seems that with the Château de la Commaraine, plus the Château de Pommard, Pommard is to become the new chic destination of jet-setters – I trust that all the new château owners have bullet-proof marketing projections 🙂
Edit, 18 Nov 2017
One week later, much more info here, via Decanter…
There are 3 responses to “pommard’s clos de la commaraine”
Jancis Robinson recently wrote how wine tourism is not a strong suit in France, except in Languedoc-Roussilon.
When we were planning a weekend visit to Burgundy at the beginning of July 2017, it was difficult to find wineries to visit because of the weekend.
Now I know it is France, and weekends are sacred. But unfortunately that is often when working folks will be able to drive over to visit. (Our visit was because we had gone to Flueli-Ranft, Switzerland for a wedding and could only drive over to Burgundy for part Saturday and all of Sunday tastings.
It would be good IF Burgundy was a bit more friendly to wine tourism!
Welcome Siddharth
Yes indeed, the weekend is the weekend here.
There are still great tour-guides available(!) and a good selection of domaines to visit at weekends – some fabulous cellars too. But you are right, the grand domaines are closed to everyone at weekends. You could in fact say that they are anyway closed to 99.99% of people – even during the week…
Bestest!
Dear Siddarth,
while I completely understand your feelings about being unable to find a welcome in Burgundy on a weekend, there is something I would like to add. Most Burgundy wine growers are small to medium sized family operations, where the vigneron and his wife (son, daughter, dog …) work hard from monday till friday, and in the growing season often the weekend as well. The vineyard and cellar work is physically extremely demanding, many end up with back problems before hitting their minimum retirement age of 60. Remember, these are not Bordeaux-type châteaux, where the boss is a Paris-based banker! So it is completely understandeable that these folk try to enjoy one or two days rest once a week.
But do keep coming to Burgundy by all means, with a bit of effort you should be able to find open cellar doors!
Dear Bill and Roelof,
Thanks for both your responses.
I am fully sympathetic to the small nature of Burgundy wineries, and the need for the weekend respite.
I was able to organize some special tastings, since we were a group of 12 novice wine lovers, at a few of the larger wineries, and also a special tour of Maison Champy.
It was still an amazing visit, something to hold on to our collective memories for a long time.
Interestingly this weekend’s Jancis Robinson column in Financial Times is about how Burgundy prevented the severe frost in April from spoiling its 2017 yields, unlike previous years.