Domaine Perrot Minot

After practising the profession of wine broker for seven years, Christophe Perrot-Minot took over his parent’s estate in 1993. As well as providing renewed vigour and a perfectionist’s approach to the winemaking, Christophe also succeeded in expanding the Domaine substantially by buying out the famous Pernin-Rossin estate in Vosne-Romanée, starting with the 2000 vintage. The viticulture is respectful to nature and terroir - no chemical fertiliser or herbicides are used. Low yields and Christophe’s eye for detail are fundamental to the great quality of the wines, in addition to the Domaine’s impressive army of old vines ranging from 40 to 100 years old. Everything is hand-picked, vine leaves and canopies are thinned during the season and sorting / grapes selections are rigorous. The grapes are , for the most part, de- stalked, though up to a third whole-bunches are kept depending on the vintage and the vineyard. After fermentation the wines are aged in a maximum of 30-40% new oak. The wines are incredibly ripe, refined and concentrated, yet despite their almost modern intensity and polish they allow the nuances and character of terroir to come through strongly. A stellar Domaine.

2019 Vintage

2019 was “exceptional” according to Christophe Perrot-Minot, who adds that the wines “have volume, finesse, and elegance.They are very round yet fresh.There is tension and minerality – the terroir is well identified.They have great luminosity too and are intense but aren’t the sort of hyper concentrated wines you’d expect from such a hot, dry vintage.” He is certainly proud of these and justifiably so. All the more galling then, that quantities are tiny. He made less than half the 185 barrels he could have done in a “normal” year. Poor flowering and drought were the contributing factors.

2020 Vintage

Drought and meticulous de-selection of burned grapes have resulted in a crop that is 22% smaller than the already diminutive 2019 vintage.Yields ranged between 14 and 22hl/ha. Christophe has handled this small, drought vintage brilliantly, however – continuing his recent great form as one of the top producers in the Côte. He began harvest on 27th August and finished on the 4th September, bringing in absolutely pristine fruit that averaged a very measured 12.5–13.7 degrees of potential alcohol.Whole bunches (of which 40–50% have been used this year) were hand sorted and de-stalked fruit went through the optical sorting system.The wines will be aged for between 12–18 months, depending on the cuvee, in 20% new oak.These offer a mix of transparency, intensity and nuance that have characterised the huge step up in quality seen at this estate over the last few years.

2021 Vintage

This was our last tasting of the two weeks we spent in Burgundy and what a way to finish. Talk about ending on a high. Christophe Perrot-Minot is a thoughtful, attentive winemaker who crafts exceptionally polished wines that manage to be both disarmingly alluring but also intellectually stimulating. Harvest started on the 27th, quite late by the vintage standards, but possible due to the very small quantity of grapes that were to be harvested.This is just a third of the size of a normal harvest. But the waiting paid off, in quality if not in quantity, as the resulting wines have a sense of melting tannic finesse that is all their own. There’s a little less whole bunch across the range, no more than 20% for most cuvées, with the wines receiving very slightly shorter élevage than normal, to help preserve the freshness of the wines. The upward trend that this Domaine has been on continues apace.This is clearly one of the great domaines of the Cote now, producing wines of thrilling finesse and intensity.

2022 Vintage

Christophe Perrot Minot’s range of 2022s are drop dead gorgeous. But not only are they gorgeous, they are intellectually stimulating too, with one or two of the cuvees suggesting true greatness in years to come. “I really don’t think this vintage is too imprinted by the sunshine,” Christophe intoned, and indeed he is right. Blessed with extraordinary holdings of old vines and a truly meticulous attention to detail, Perrot-Minot has been crafting increasingly impressive wines in recent years. These 2022s seem to crown his ascent, offering up seductive textures, bright and detailed flavours, haunting length and lifted structures. Using an optical sorting machine for all the destemmed fruit, Christophe believes this gives him the ability to remove any signs of heat stress in a vintage such as 2022: “anything even slightly shrivelled is eliminated. Only the very roundest, smoothest skinned grapes are fermented – which makes a big difference to the purity of flavours”. In 2022, the harvest date was essentially a question of going as early as possible – “I would prefer to chaptalise a tiny bit to bring the wines up to 13%, to give more complexity and consistency by prolonging the fermentations, than wait and lose freshness”. Whatever decisions Christophe took, they’ve paid off. These are wines that are very easy to love, managing to delight the senses as much as they stimulate the imagination. This looks set to be one of the ranges of the vintage.