Domaine de la Commaraine

This is a very exciting new find for us indeed. The Clos de la Commaraine, a fine 3.75ha Premier Cru Monopole in Pommard has long been something of a sleeping giant. Originally classed in Lavalle's 1855 classification as a Première Cuvée, the potential of this vineyard has always been well known. Initially owned by the Jaboulet-Vercherre family, during which time it was made and marketed by Louis Jadot, it was bought in 2017 by Harvard Professor, Denise Dupré, and Mark Nunelly, former Managing Director of a Boston Capital investment fund, with the ambition to restore the wine to its former glory and make it one of the great Premiers Crus of the Côte de Beaune. The first, and most crucial, step they made was to sign up Louis-Michel Liger-Belair to control production. Louis-Michel has a free hand to make the wine as he sees fit, starting in the vineyard, which will be fully converted to biodynamics. The first vintage under his control was 2018 - a thrilling debut vintage and an exciting new chapter for the estate.

2019 Vintage

Progress at this great Pommard Monopole has been extraordinary under the stewardship of Jean-Luc Vitoux and Louis-Michel Liger-Belair. The 2018 proved an outstanding debut, yet the bar has clearly risen with their second vintage, 2019. Serious work has been afoot on soil health, canopy management, biodynamics, and identifying eight different sub plots within the vineyard and adapting the choice of cooper to these different plots. In Jean-Luc’s words, the result is a “fine, elegant and precise wine, “ adding “this vintage is so interesting for its purity of fruit.” In our view, this is a stunning 2019. A beautifully elegant, intense and precise wine, the silkiest Pommard we have tasted, and a clear step up from the lovely 2018.

2020 Vintage

Paul Krug has recently joined the team, after working with Pedro Parra for many years, alongside Jean-Luc Vitoux and Louis-Michel LigerBelair. He gave us a fascinating tour of the Clos de la Commaraine, which is a complex and diverse mix of soils based on three main terroirs – iron-rich soils, deposits from an old river bed and limestone towards the top of the vineyard. Only a proportion of this historic Premier Cru Monopole of 3.75ha is bottled up each year and sold as Clos de la Commaraine. In 2020 this represented 50% of the crop, a similar proportion to 2019. The eventual goal is to increase this as vines age and plantings diversify. As was the case across the Côte, 2020 harvest started and finished in August, lasting a rapid seven days (half the time of the 2019 vintage.) The grapes were picked in mornings only, to preserve their freshness. A tasting of the six sub plots that comprise the blend was a fascinating exercise that yielded impressive, stylistically diverse results – everything here is geared towards allowing the terroirs to express themselves; the wines are all made in the same way: de-stemming, gentle vinifications with no pigeages, barrels from three different coopers applied in the same proportions for each block. The result is exquisite and represents another huge step up in quality here. The vineyard has been biodynamic since 2018 and organic certification arrived in 2021, and with such precise, watchful, but hands off wine-making the quality revolution here is in full flow.

2021 Vintage

Having habitually been one of the first estates in Pommard to harvest, Paul Krug, working alongside Jean-Luc Vitoux and Louis-Michel Liger Belair, took the bold decision to wait in 2021. While all around were busily picking, they felt that optimal ripeness required patience. “This was one of the biggest challenges of the vintage, to find the optimal harvest date. There was some warmth and rain during the harvest period, but we decided that we’d rather lose some grapes to rot than harvest before we were happy. As a result we had to do a lot of sorting, it was a long process. But, in the end, it was absolutely worth it. That said, at the beginning, just after harvest I thought this was a very delicate fragile vintage. But month by month the wines gain in body and dimension, and I’m increasingly impressed”. We were extremely impressed too – this is clearly a Domaine going from strength to strength as the team gains an ever-greater understanding of the various plots and terroirs that make up this great Clos, a shining light for the appellation.

2022 Vintage

Our first appointment on the drizzly Thursday morning of our first week was at Domaine de la Commaraine, where we were met by the smiling pair of Hugues Romagnan, commercial director, and Paul Krug (son of Olivier) who makes the wines. This is one of the most exciting domaines in the Cote d’Or at the moment, with an expanding portfolio of vines and eyes for only the very best. Preferring to de-bud and prune exactingly so as to set an intentional crop early in the season, the team has not had to carry out any green harvesting in recent years. “It was an easy vintage” Paul recalled, “we had only minor troubles with disease, so had to carry out very few treatments. The only challenge, apart from 70mm in June, was a lack of water; we had to water our youngest vines to keep them alive.” Taking the decision to not cut their canopies prior to harvest afforded their vines greater shade from the sun and as a result harvest began on the 3rd September, picking only in the early mornings. New to the portfolio is a plot in St Aubin’s excellent Murgers des Dents de Chien, marking the domaine’s first foray into Chardonnay. The debut is extremely promising, as indeed is the entire range.

2023 Vintage

The development of Domaine de la Commaraine continues apace, both in qualitative terms, but also with regards to the renovation of the buildings at the Clos in Pommard. Viticulture was carried out along usual strictures, with particular attention paid to crop management. Elevage will be slightly shorter than normal, to preserve the fresh open characters of the wines. Degrees were slightly lower than in 2022, while pHs were ever so slightly up. Tasting with Paul Krug is always enjoyable; he’s a confident yet humble winemaker who is very much looking to the future. With every passing visit we hear more about their discoveries in the Clos, how they are ever better understanding the varied terroirs and subsoils of this great vineyard. In 2023 harvest started on the 5th with the whites, a day later for the reds, and required moderate sorting due to their efforts green harvesting. The Grand Vin is a shining example of top quality Pommard in excellent hands, while the cast of supporting vineyards that we have selected, increasingly make this estate a fully complete proposition. The only way is up.