Albert Bichot (Burgundy)

Clos Frantin CellarsBeaune, Burgundy.
The Maison Albert Bichot is one of these legendary Negoce Houses of Burgundy. It is arduous to summarize in a single page such an institution with all its intricate complexity and expertise accumulated over two centuries. This Beaune family company has served private clients in France and abroad since times when wine was delivered by the cask only. This respectable "Maison Beaunoise" was funded in 1831 and had its start in Meursault. It is still owned today by the Bichot family and now in its 6th generation, it is managed by Albéric Bichot (pictured in Beaune on right). The Negoce activity of the family began when it inherited vineyards in 1831. Before that time, it owned vast expanses of woods and properties across Burgundy, primarily for hunting, which was a very profitable activity at the time. During the Phylloxera troubled times, the Bichot family bought several failing Negoce Houses and expanded.
The word Negoce itself has evolved over the years : at the beginning, the Negoce houses were more "negoce", or wholesale dealers, than today, in the sense that they just bought already-vinified wine and stored them a bit before finding the customers. The wooden casks weren't thought as an enological tool then but were the basic containers for both the elevage and the transport of the wine. Now things have changed and at Bichot for example, they vinify themselves most of the wine sold under their label (90%), be it from they own grapes or purchased ones, and when they vinify grapes from contracted vineyards, they have the viticulture practices there checked as if they owned the vineyard. Back in the 18th or 19th century, these Negoce Houses were the only existing link allowing the wine amateur from, say, Paris, London or Antwerpen to have access to quality wines year after year, because there was no direct shipping from individual vignerons to begin with.

Colbert Cellars (Beaune) : Hospices-de-Beaune Wines (here Nicolas Rolin Cuvée)Bichot owns several estates across Burgundy, from Domaine Long-Depaquit in Chablis to Chateau de Dracy at the southern tip of the Cote de Beaune, and Domaine du Pavillon in Pommard, Domaine du Clos Frantin in Nuits Saint Georges, Chateau de Montpatey in the Cotes du Couchois and Domaine du Chateau Gris/Lupé-Cholet also in Nuits Saint Georges. We have tasted several of their wines recently in Paris, especially their Chablis Grand Cru La Moutonne and their Gevrey-Chambertin Les Murots 2005, a mineral, subtle and refined Pinot Noir from a very stony climat. This incited us to ask for a visit to learn more about the Maison.
The picture above was shot at the Colbert Cellars, near the headquarters of the Negoce House. They bought this surface- and underground facility to the Bouchard Negoce-House not long ago, and are re-organizing it as the center of elevage for the Bichot-estates wines, the wines from contracted vineyards and the Hospices wines. Most of the casks on the picture above (foreground : Beaune 1er Cru Cuvée Nicolas Rolin) were bought at the Hospices de Beaune auction. Actually, the Maison Albert Bichot was the biggest buyer at the last Hospices de Beaune auction. Anne-Sophie Stirring Up the Lees on White Mercurey (Colbert Cellars, Beaune)What is nice in a cellar-visit is to fall upon workers doing the usual tasks : everyone (in the wine crowd at least) knows what batonnage (stirring) or soutirage (racking) is, but seeing someone doing it is a plus. The rapid, precision movement of Anne-Sophie here is so important and rarely documented. She introduces this long metal tool through the cask hole and repeats the same movement several times on each cask to mix the lees again with the wine, or stir them up. The lees, which otherwise sediment in the bottom of the cask, can interact again with the wine. At Bichot now, the wines spend their first year in casks at their respective estate, and come for their second year of elevage in the Colbert cellars in Beaune, alongside the wines from contracted vineyards and the Hospices-de-Beaune purchases. We tasted a few wines in this cellar, beginning with this white Mercurey.
__Mercurey (white) 2007. Chardonnay, from contracted vineyards, and vinified here by Bichot. Very grape-like nose
__Chassagne-Montrachet (white) 2007, just stirred by Anne-Sophie. This Chardonnay is turbid, of course. Very important malic acidity, he notes. Malolactic fermentations are not blocked at Bichot and are just beginning to start. Speaking of the contracted vineyards at Bichot, Alain Serveau is the one who oversees the viticulture practices there and checks (along with the enologists of the Bichot estates) that they fit with their requirements. He tastes the different wines every day between 10am and noon, including the 10% purchased wines that Bichot will sell under its label.
__Chassagne Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeots. Nose incredibly on the grapefruit side. Same for the mouth. Typical pre-fermentary (malo) aroma, he says.Racking on Clos des Ursulines, Pommard 2006 (Colbert)In another cask-room of the vast Colbert underground facility in Beaune, we watch as a worker racks cask after cask of the Pommard 2006. He pumps the wine through the hole with an adjustable tool, depending of the depth of lees he wants to leave in the bottom : here he leaves about 3 liters of deposit in the bottom because the casks haven't been moved and the lees are already compact. The remaining lees wil be gathered in a cask or a small metal container and kept separately for a possible further use, and the wine goes in a cask again. Another worker rolls the near-empty casks and takes them to another cellar.
The particularity at Bichot compared with many Negoce Houses is that its different estates always retained their separate identity and thus, they have their own enologist, Chistophe Chauvel being the chief-enologist who oversees the whole production. Bichot has today some 130 hectares in full ownership, and vinifies about 150 hectares of contracted vineyards. The purchase of already-vinified wines makes up 10% of the total production, most of it Chablis.Very Old Cellar (St Nicolas- beaune)We walk a short distance from the Bichot Headquarters and from the Colbert facility, to the Saint-Nicolas facility, along the Beaune ring road. It is complete with an old mansion and beautiful cellars, including this one, which is possibly from the cistercian era. Several details point to this possibility, even though the vertical lower-part of the pillars seem to say otherwise. The city suffered heavy destruction in the past centuries and this cellar could have been partially rebuilt with non-cistercian designs, explaining the contradictory architectural message of this particular room. This Saint-Nicolas location in downtown Beaune is going to be renovated in 2008 by Bichot to receive visitors and individual buyers, something that Alberic Bichot thinks is important even for a Negoce House (they don't have any tasting room or visitor center till this day).Laurent Lignier at Clos Frantin. Foreground : the Richebourg VatLaurent Lignier, commercial director at Bichot drives us then to the Domaine du Clos Frantin, the facilities of which are located in Nuits-Saint-Georges, 17 km north of Beaune (the winery has been moved there from Vosne-Romanée because of lack of space). The clos Frantin has 13 hectares of vineyards in Cotes de Nuits, most in First- (Vosne-Romanée Malconsorts) and Grand Cru (Richebourg, Chambertin, Grands-Echezeaux, Echezeaux, Clos-de-Vougeot). The place has the patina of time and just the necessary modernity. Just look at the ground in one of the Clos-Frantin cellars [pic on right] : This antique trench drain has probably seen tons of spilled wine flow through it since its tiles have been installed a couple of centuries ago. I was amazed to see how efficient the tiling was thought, with the right slope-gradient on both sides to let the wine or water flow...
All the wooden open-vats here are quite old, most have a 40-50 hectoliter capacity, the biggest making 90 hectoliter and the smallest (the Richebourg vat, here on the front) 4,5 hectoliter. They have 2 "ouvrées" of Richebourg, making a bit more than a cask. An ouvrée is an old surface measure, 24 ouvrées making an hectare. Each cuvéee/plot has its own vat here. The vat house at Clos Frantin has two large rooms, this one with 25 wooden-vats and the other (which is a former chapel), with 19. You don't see it here on the picture, but all these vats are connected on the back with a cooling system to control the temperature. Grapes are destemmed in general and arrive in 300-kg stainless-carts, are unloaded into the vats with mobile elevators, and kept at 12°C for about 4-5 days for more fruit aromas (cold maceration). Then the fermentation is let loose with the indigenous yeasts and the temperatures goes up to 17-18°C for another 12 days or so. Then, manual cap-punching and pumping over on a daily basis. Here, they want to use tradition to get tannins, color and structure, he says. These open-top vats are ideal for an easy manual cap-punching and also the thick wood (about 5cm) insulates better the juice during this sensitive phase. The wooden vats mean of course time-hungry tasks like after the fermentation when they have to be emptied from the solid matters, as this is all done by hand. After having cleaned them meticulously with water, workers brush the inside with wine and let it dry, to protect the wood from rot or insects.Tasting a Few Cotes-de-Nuits at Clos Frantin (map)We head to the cellars now and Laurent Lignier wants us both to taste something rare : a white Nuits Saint Georges.
__Bichot white Nuits-Saint-Georges "Les Terrasses du Chateau" (Chateau Gris) 2007. Turbid, onctuous, minerality. New cask. There are 11 casks of this wine, 4 new casks and the rest 1 or 2 wines. The soil from the Terrasses plot is made of limestone. This is the only climat where you can find white Nuits-Saint-Georges.
__Bichot, Clos-Frantin, Gevrey-Chambertin "Les Murots" 2007 (red). From the lower part of the climat with lots of stones and debris flows. Harvested september 8. Nice mouth, well-structured. Nice aromas, B. feels raspberry and cloves in there.
__Bichot Charmes-Chambertin 2007. Purchased grapes, harvested september 10. The soil here is more rocky (deep bedrock) but part of the plot is also sandy, he says. Quite nice. Fruit, elegance, refined. Very pleasant wine.
__Bichot Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru "les Malconsorts" 2007. One-wine old cask. You can see on this map that V.R. Grand Cru is in the center and the V.R. 1er Cru split in several parts around it, and the Malconsorts is on the left wing of the 1er Cru, bordering La Tache, V.R. Grand Cru. Very ripe fruits, humus, B. says. Neat mouth.
__Bichot, Clos de Vougeot 2007. New cask. They have two plots there, on the Vosne-Romanée side. Very nice. Different wine here, massive, square. A structured, manly wine.We might find some room in our own cellar for these...What about the harvest time and the very early blossoming this year ? He says that when usually the harvest comes 100 days after blossoming, this year was atypical, with a 105-day delay between the flower- and harvest start. 2003, the heat-wave year, was another atypical year with a 85-day gap only. Albert Bichot6 bis boulevard Jacques Copeau21200 Beaunephone +33 (0)3 80 24 37 37Fax +33 (0)3 80 24 37 38bourgogne@albert-bichot.comwww.albert-bichot.com

Comments

[pat b]

Bert,

Lovely pictures. My favorites are the antique trench drain and the very old cellar. They really give an idea of the tradition and history of wine making. I enjoy your narratives, which so easily describe not just the subject but also transmit the atmosphere of the place and the occasion. Keep up your good work; I have enjoyed your site for the past year and I always look forward to your next story.

[pablo]

Hi Bert
I like your website very much. i'm going each year since 1975 three times to the burgundy.
The great man behind the wine of bichot is Alain Serveau not Serdeau. I think the best for you would be that you go once to his parent estate in Morey where his brother Jean-Louis has the lead.
Have a nice time and do your good work furthermore.

[Bertrand]

Thanks, Pablo. Misspell corrected. Thank you for the tip about his family estate.
Bertrand

[Akhil Kapoor]

I have a bottle of the 1947 Bichot Richebourg with a good fill line. Should I open it now and drink it or sell it - what is the best option?

[Bertrand]

I'd sell it and buy a few more recent wines for the money (my option).