I was lucky enough to catch up with Pascal Marchand yesterday in quite sunny Zürich, mainly presenting his 2010s – it was a good chance to learn more about his new rôle with the former Domaine Maume.
We knew already last year that the family Maume wanted to extract the equity in the domaine which had been run so well by Bertrand Maume – sad for him, for sure – it was a source of wines with a lot of personality, but who would come next? There was plenty of speculation, there always is, but it seemed to centre around various large négoce, so it was a bit of surprise when we learned a few weeks back that it was the backer of Pascal Marchand’s operation in Nuits St.Georges – Moray Tawse – who had scooped the four hectare domaine from ‘the usual suspects’. The eventual label may be branded ‘Domaine Tawse, by Pascal Marchand’ or something similar, let’s see. (The linked press release makes for some confusion versus my interpretation of the discussion – I’ll try to contact Bertrand…)
Bertrand had managed his vines with a ‘lutte raisonée‘ approach, but Pascal, still working with his old number two, Bernard Zito, has already started the conversion to Biodynamics “Actually, it wasn’t that easy to start doing anything” joked Pascal yesterday, “We’ve had so much rain since the early Spring that we can hardly get into the vines because of the mud!“. Meanwhile Pascal continues to oversee the ongoing conversion work of the part of the old Moillard cuverie/cellars where he will transfer everything in it’s current Nuits home”hopefully before the next harvest!”
[Notes on Pascal’s wines, later…]
