Château de Meursault

A wonderful, historic Domaine that has the Côte de Beaune’s most impressive vaulted cellars. Château de Meursault has for a long time been on the tourist trail and is the impressive venue for the famous Paulee de Meursault in November. Their vineyard holdings have always been the envy of the Côte but a reliance on passing tourist trade, lack of know-how and investment meant that traditionally the wines failed to live up to their promise. However the Château’s fortunes changed in 2012 when it was bought by Olivier Halley with the intention to make it one of the most hallowed estates in Burgundy, money no object. The Château is now firmly on the Burgundy lover’s map. In 2012 Olivier brought in Stephane Follin-Arbelet to run the estate, brother of Frank Follin-Arbelet and former director of Bouchard, Stephane knows a thing or two about what it means to make top quality Burgundy and what it takes to manage a large estate. Conversion to organics, planting cover crops, increasing the size of picking teams (up to 200 people to shorten the harvest period) and lowering yields are just some of the many effective innovations he has brought in. The winemaking is respectful to terroir, new oak ranges from 25-40% and the wines are aged for 15-18 months in the enormous, cool, vaulted cellars underneath the Château. A new star of Burgundy is born. Along with sister estate, Château de Marsannay, this will soon be one of the biggest certified organic estates in the Côte d'Or.

2017 Vintage

A Herculean effort here, and just the sort of vintage that shows how far this estate has come since the change of ownership, and ensuing investment, in 2012. The picking window to get Chardonnay absolutely right is a short one, and so it was in 2017. Château de Meursault despatched 200 pickers on the 28th August and harvested all of their whites within four days. A monumental achievement. “Elegance" and "balance” are the words Château de Meursault’s winemaker, Emmanuel Escutenaire, uses to describe the 2017 wines. It was a year largely characterised by a warm early season, fine flowering period and warm, sunny weather throughout summer. The vines and grapes were in an excellent state of health, waiting for ripened grapes was a crucial but thankfully very permittable goal, thanks to the health of the plants and good weather conditions. Noting that it was particularly important to rely on the taste of the berries rather than must analysis alone, Emmanuel decided to start harvesting the whites early to ensure freshness in the wines. The team started picking the Chardonnays first, commencing on the 28th August, the Pinots followed and harvest lasted a total of twelve days in total. The whites underwent their usual vinification, in barriques, and were then aged sur lie fines in barriques with very little bâtonnage to avoid the wines becoming too heavy. They show a wealth of white and yellow fruit characteristics whilst also showing good complexity and concentration. For their top red cuvées, Trois Journaux, Clos de Chene, Clos des Epenots and Corton, Emmanuel fermented them in tronconic oak vats for the first time and was delighted with the results. Overall the Pinots offer deep, dense ripe fruit flavours and the most sensual and supple of textures and tannic structures. A truly alluring and seductive vintage from one of the great Domaines of the Côte de Beaune.

2018 Vintage

In the words of Château de Meursault winemaker Emmanuel Escutenaire; 2018 was a “Millesime de grand satisfaction!” Indeed it was an important year for Château de Meursault, for not only was 2018 great for the estate, qualitatively, it was the first year of conversion to organic farming with the hope that as of the 2019 vintage they will become the biggest estate in Burgundy to be officially certified. Quite some feat considering how much work this involves across the 107ha that make up the Château de Meursault and Château Marsannay estates! You can only admire what they achieve here. As an idea of the estate’s scale and drive, consider that in the warm 2018 vintage they had employed two teams of 55 pickers each across the two domaines. Not only was harvesting early, important in 2018, so too was the speed and mobility with which you did so, to ensure that every grape was brought in as fresh as possible. The vintage began on the 24th August here and finished on the 6th September. Stephane Follin-Arbelet explained how great the health and quality of grapes were at harvest time, not a spot of disease on the vines, and also how surprisingly fresh the fruit was – in his words “they were fresh and juicy, much less heavy tasting than other warmer vintages like 2015, for example.” Apart from cracking the logistical puzzle, another aspect that helped keep freshness in the grapes, Stephane believed, was the vintage’s naturally high yields, which helped slow ripening down. Though his final cautionary note was that you had to keep some check on quantities nonetheless, otherwise you risked dilution in the final wines. These 2018's may have been picked early but both the reds and whites show impressively clear, fresh lines and focus. Expressive vineyard characteristics are vividly interwoven through the ripe, alluring fruit. A herculean effort.