Cruzille, Burgundy
The Clos des Vignes du Maynes is a family domaine since the early 1950s' when Julien Guillot's grandfather Pierre bought the property (this was in 1952) which had a 2-hectare clos with it. He later discovered that this clos was formerly belonging to the monks [moynes in old French] of Cluny (the Abbey was founded
in the year 910) which is located 20 kilometers away (much less as the crow flies),
and that in 1552 the name was mistakenly changed from "Vignes du Moynes" to "Vignes du Maynes". Pierre Guillot was not from a winemaking or grower family and his approach from the start was to work organic [the word didn't exist back then, making his work look even more backward for the peers], without pesticides and soon without sulfites as he had noticed that he didn't stand sulfites well. He plowed his parcels with a draft horse and used only the Bordeaux mix for the disease, plus compost with manure. At the very beginning he'd sell the wine to the Cave Coopérative de Lugny but he was fired from the group because he proposed to sell in bottles when the direction was still then on the old scheme of selling in bulk to the négoces in Beaune or Nuits-Saint-Georges. So from 1954 the wines of the domaine (which grew along the years from 6 to 11 hectares) were made from organic grapes, without sulfites, no chaptalization, no lab yeast... Julien says that from time to time they have verticales of nature wines going from 1954 to today, not a very common tasting indeed...
Speaking of the region, this part of Burgundy known as the Mâconnais has remained very authentic with remote, quiet villages, vast expanses of woods, hills, winding roads, very similar to the Beaujolais actually but with a more classy architecture. Beaune and the Côtes seem overbuilt and crowded in comparison, you'll get a more authentic feel of what the region was like in the past by driving around on the back roads of the Mâconnais.
Asked if he knew Joe Dressner, the inspired pioneer importer of natural wines who lived in the Mâconnais, he says of course, it's a couple of minutes from here and he's right, I hadn't checked that before when planning this visit but Poil Rouge is indeed 6 kilometers from Cruzille... Julien had already an importer then but Joe used to drop here when on vacation to buy wine. He says they still have the nice house over there.
Alain, Julien's father for his part took over the wheel at the family domaine in 1970 and he was the president of the FNAV (Fédération Nationale d'Agriculture Biologique) founded in 1978 and he helped put in place tha AB logo and certification with the requirements (this was done along the 1980s).
In 1995 he could meet the Minister of Agriculture and have his points on the ingredients labelling for food products (source - science magazine Nexus) and they decided to set up the AB logo with a certification system that would help people know when a product is organic.
Julien who took the wheel in 2001 remembers the people around his father and grandfather, these were Pierre Rabih, Suzanne Michon (Beaujeu), Claude Bourguignon and his grandfather had worked with Lemaire-Boucher who were pioneers in organic agriculture. They also worked with Max Léglise who was an enologist, Xavier Florin who was so knowlegeable in composts, then there was Jules Chauvet who developped another style of natural winemaking. The Bourguignons came many times here to dig and analyze the soil nature, and all including Alain Guillot were teaching at the Beaujeu school in the 1980s, Julien says that this was certainly the best school of the world but alas it ended in 1997.
the oldest cellar (pictured here and on top) was built in the Middle Ages on gallo-roman ruins, the bulging wall on the right being part of the oldest structure. They keep the spirits, the marcs in this cellar (the domaine distils its own marcs). Julien says that 2000 years ago walls were built along what we call today Hartmann lines in the science of geobiology. People at the time felt these things, now they use pendulums or other tools to find the magnetic fields and flows.
Here in this large cellar you have a wide range of vessels and volumes, foudres and barrels plus cement, steel and stainless-steel tanks. The vaulted ceiling was built recently along the Cluny architecture model, also with geobiology in mind for the sake of the wines that age here, the keystones playing the role of energy ducts.
Speaking of the vineyard the total surface is 7 hectares, the Clos that makes 2 hectares plus the rest is made of about 10 parcels with lots of woods around. The top of the slopes were planted in the past but were abandonned because the phylloxera (at the end of 19th century) and mostly not replanted. But Julien and his family did some replanting there, although with the thin layer of earth it's questionable if the vineyard can stand long droughts in the long term.
Julien follows the history of each barrel/foudre in this cellar, how they behave,
all being noted on the wood through signs. Before racking for example they taste all the barrels and note the imprint of the vessel on the wine through 5 hieroglyph-like signs weighing the mouth touch, the structure. This helps them follow the barrels or foudres year after year and avoid to have the oak that dominates because it brings dry tannins in the mouth and you loose the sapidity. He tastes himself with 3 other people, twice a year.
The two red foudres on the left which look so much Alsatian are actually from here in Burgundy & Beaujolais, they also look quite old, one of them comes from Christian Ducroux. He has no Austrian foudre right now but why not one day, although he has lots of investment to manage, so he is careful about buying such a new foudre which is pretty expensive.
We then walked into the chai, a very large and efficient surface warehouse lined with open-top wooden fermenters on both sides with lots of Grenier tronconic vats. Julien says that he has different vinification types, he points to a few open-top fermenters and says that he has been working mille-feuille style like we say in French, meaning he alternates layers of whole-clustered grapes and destemmed grapes in the fermenters, this way he has a semi-carbonic fermentation, part having its carbo inside the whole grapes and it also helps having less alcohol. Also through cooling coils he sets the temperature between 10 C and 13 C (50 to 55,5 F) which helps select the right yeast for the job. Asked about the maceration length, Julien says that's different for each vat.
On colder years the maceration can last longer while on warm years he has to shorten with the 14 % potential because in this range that's the alcohol which through infusion on the stems, skins & seeds will extract tannins in a way that is hard to keep in check. This is a very different situation at 12 % or 12,5 % where it's much more manageable allows for longer macerations. Asked about the remontage he does some but from I understood he doesnt like pigeage which disturbs the multi-layer scheme. Some of the newer Grenier fermenters with a lid are very practical for the fermentation because the bubbling juice and foam climb naturally along the walls to the cap, which they then begin to degrade. He says when you vinify without sulfur it's always better to be sure the oxygen doesn't come in, which is the case in these tight tronconic vats. But anyway at the beginning they soak all the fermenters with CO2 and put a tarpaulin as cover.
The fermenters in the background are the ones his father used, Julien has always seen them and they make the cuvée Auguste, Manganite in there.
When the fermentation is full blown he lets the temperature go up to 30 C (86 F) which he didn't do in the past, he allows it because he feels that all the yeast need to work which will yield wines that are more complex. He'll make a bit more tannins but keeping the low-temp fermentation all along will not work in this region, he says it is a Néauport style that works well in Ardèche but here the acidity is pretty high and you have to wrap it somehow. He's not afrait to let it spike to 30 C, he says at this temperature you have fusions between alcohol, tannins, acid and it's interesting.
The two 45-hectoliter fermenters on the picture come from Gramenon, Michèle Aubery was buying newer ones and Julien bought her these.
In the back of the winery Julien showed us how the soil looks like under the surface : the earth layer is very thin in the area with the cracked limestone underneath offering opportunities for the thirsty roots to sneak between the cracks looking for nutrients. On the slopes where the vineyards are planted the earth layer is like 25 to 30 centimeters and going deeper in places, it is very shallow and his parcels are very sensitive to drought, that's why it's very good that the rock table has these many faults. And this type of stone is perfect for building purpose, he may do something with the ones here later by the way...
Julien says that when they built this facility along the house, they made sure that it was self sufficient, beginning with electricity, as the roof is covered with solar panels (they even sell excess power to the utility, this will have paid back the whole system in 8 years, or 200 000 €). They also stock rain water with an ingenious filtration system that puts the water from the first 10 minutes apart because it carries the roofs dirt and dust, then when the "dirty" water time has passed the system tilts with some sort of toilet float and shifts the rain water to the main tank where it's filtrated through sand. This way they really have a pretty clean water which they almost could drink (they'd need lab tests to be sure) and which is very good for the winery and cellar use. I asked which company makes this but Julien says it's experimental, but it works fine, there's only a couple of details they'd have changed. He says there is 800 mm of rain water per year and it stays stable, the only thing is that some times you have almost a year without any rain and the 800 mm come in a single episode.
We then walked to the tasting room, a nice place with lots of historic tools and bottles (if you have time when you visit they have a museum in here, with a large number of wine related items and tools). Julien makes 14 cuvées every year, plus a few spirits and a few experimental cuvées on small volumes. Every year he says he'll stop making these micro-cuvées that take a lot of time and add to an already-wide line of wine. Julien has also a négoce part for his wines, meaning he buys grapes for example in Beaujolais to make some Morgon, Chenas and a Beaujolais, this as become necessary to do also purchase fruit given that certain years there are important losses because of hail, frost or even heatwave.
__ Aligo Rythm, Aligoté 2018, bottled not long ago. 1500 bottles from 15 rows of young vines. Bottled ijn april with a light, pre-filtration with earth. His gradfather had some aligoté but he pulled them out in the 1970s. He says this is an interesting variety because it's only 11,8 % in alcohol with still a nice maturity. Some people don't like Aligoté but for his part he loves having a dry white from time to time. This wine doesn't see oak in spite of what the yellowish color might make you think, he says the variety is Aligoté Jaune Doré, plus the fact he doesn't use sulfites [only 0,5 g/ho, almost nothing] plays a role as many whites have neutral color solely because the wineries use lots of SO2 which takes the color away. Ripeness in the mouth with a nice stone, mineral feel, very nice. Julien says the soil is thick with fossilized shells dating from when it was underwater. And by the way this wine pairs well with fish and sea food. Good length. There also an anise side. 15 € retail at the domaine.
__ Bourgogne Blanc, En Rimont 2016, from 40-year-old vines planted on 4-meter-deep crushed limestone mixed with white & yellow clay. Like the previous parcel lots of woods around, oak trees and dill (which gave this anise feel in the aligoté). Good yields on this parcel, like 60 ho/ha, these are purchased grapes, from a grower who doesn't make wine, he grows organic vegetables and sells grapes from his uncle's vineyard to him self and Julien Altaber. We ask Julien how a grower who grows nice organic grapes can refuse to make wine, he says that's the administrative hurdles which prevents them to, for exemple here he says he has to have 2 full-time office workers to deal with the administative paperwork... Much of this paperwork is useless, he says, we're chaperoned like children to scrounge yet another tax; he spoke with friends in the U.S. who have a small brewery with a pub and he was amazed to hear how simple the taxation was there, a flat tax year-round, very easy. He says here if he opens 2 bottles during the weekend to taste the wine he has to get the administrative paperwork for the tax system to know about it... This is also part of the reason he has to buy grapes, you don't make it only with the estate vineyard. [this is certainly also why many young vignerons prefer the satus of Cotisant Solidaire where the administrative side is succinct]
The fermentation take a lot of time for this Burgundy white, like 2 years, in a cement tank. 18 months on lees, then they racked it to reoxygenate it and finish the sugar. No oak at all here. Very aromatic wine, lovely, and the color is also darker. Nice gras in the mouth, Julien says it's a byproduct of slow fermentation which yields lots of glycerol. 16,5 € at the domaine.
__ Macon Villages 2017, vines from 4 parcels on red clay and limestone bed with an eastern exposition, on a soil with more humic substances. He vinifies these 4 parcels together, they begin to ferment in the single large tank, then he splits the volume in several smaller vessels including barrels and demi-muids. The age of the vines here vary from 40 to 60 and 80, with the oldest concentrationg sugar and acid with also more flesh. Citrus aromas with a nice bitterness. This is the 2nd bottling and it was unfiltered (the first part was bit filtered but not enough he says),
he has quite a bit of sediments in the bottles). Nice mouth touch, classy wine. Nice structure also, you feel the stone minerality here. Got 0,5 or 1 gram per hectoliter at blending, after which the wine stays quiet 6 months before bottling. 16 €.
At this point Julien speaks about the agreement commission, says it's always on the edge as people like him, Dominique Derain or Julien Altaber are in the crosshairs of the system because their wines are not square, polished and predictable, so the odd thing is they make here real wines without any tricks with a 1000 year history behind them and the administration pretends to push their wine back in the bland mainstream, which he'll fight tooth and nail. He thinks that the diversity of taste is as important as the diversity of thought because humans need free will and flexibility... He cites an exemple when 5 winemakers had a cuvée banned at the agreement commission, Philippe Pacalet, Dominique Derain, Laurent Tripoz (for sparklings), himself (for the Macon Cruzille Blanc Maragonite) and Philippe Valette, it was clearly targetting nature wines, and is spite of all these winemakers having no problem selling their wines. It's like if it was a revenge for the fact that their wines are now on the best restaurants' wine lists and not theirs (the tasters are often peers). For the adecdote, Valette had his wine barred that day, so it was downgraded from Viré-Clessé AOC to a table wine, which he named "Je Suis Viré" (means "I'm fired" in French), but the wine administration told him he couldn't choose that cuvée name because Viré hinted too close of Viré-Clessé, that's how they are in France... This cuvée was finally named "Et Pourtant".
__ Mâcon-Chardonnay Clos Fourneau 2017. Here you need to know that Mâcon Chardonnay doesn't mean Chardonnay wine from the Mâcon region (although it is indeed) but Mâcon Chardonnay is a Village Appellation around a village named Chardonnay (located 4 or 5 km from Cruzille as the crow flies) and which includes a couple other villages near it. Comes from a Clos with a 40-are surface, planted in 2011 on upper slopes & shallow earth near the village of Chardonnay. It was planted by a friend of his who couldn't stand the downgrading at the agreement commissions and the administrative hurdles and decided to just sell his grapes [the French wine administration is really killing our talents, that's pretty shameful]. Julien was looking for something to blend in the Macon cuvée we tasted before but he decided to vinify it separately , he did the vintage 2016 and 2017 and then bought the parcel w
__ Mâcon Cruzille Aragonite 2017, bottled in july 2018, unfiltered, no added SO2. From barrels, demi-muids and enamelled tanks. Surface, almost one hectare, mostly old vines (with a small part being 35) with soil of red clay and cristallized limestone. Nice harmony and good length, very very classy in the mouth even if not hyper demonstrative. Julien says that this cuvée ages super well, becauser of the age of the vines, the terroir that was farmed organic forever and the deep rooting of the vines and many rootlets. He says that the length in the mouth, the taste, the salinity is very connected to the ability of the vine to catch the trace elements and the minerals of the deep soil, and the hairy rootlets of the vines are very important in that regard. 35 €.
__ Pouilly Fuissé 2017, bottled in july 2018. Demeter certified. For this one there's 35 total SO2, he had to put some because he narrowly lost his batch. On the other hand he says after 2 years it integrates into the wine. And the market for this cuvée is more traditionnal and it makes the sulfites less problematic. I feel more tannins and a bitterness side, this may be connected to the SO2.
__ Mâcon Rouge, Sélection Massale 2017, made from 20 different gamays including rustic ones, some with thick skins, dark juice. Julien says that Gamay was the majority variety in the Mâconnais in the past but it was dethroned by Chardonnay starting in the 1960s and now since 10 years it's Pinot Noir which takes the lead. There was very little Pinot here in the past but in the Côte d'Or they don't have enough of it, so there's a high demand. Super enjoyable mouth with dust feel and chalky tannins, delicate wine. Julien says that when you open a bottle there's lots of reduction, the wine renarde like we say in French, because with the gamays teinturiers in there it concentrates the natural sulfurs on H2S, but the [for some] unpleasant nose goes away pretty quickly after opening. He says this wine is indestructible, it oxidizes very little, ages very well. Here while I love it already, I think it's still young and will be optimum to drink in one or two years. He says that this is a nice wine to have lunch with, and by the way his grandmother used to drink old vintages of gamay for lunch, their routine with her husband was to open 10-year-old gamays and at the end of her life she still liked to open a bottle now and then, not shy of grasping a 1964 in the cellar which Julien would have liked to keep for a coming verticale by Le Rouge et Le Blanc, but she deserved it, somehow she had made these wines also... They did this verticale tasting for the wine magazine, that was in 2014.
16 €.
__ Beaujolais, Ultimatum Climat 2016, purchased grapes. Bottle opened 4 days before. Gamay on granite, the parcel suffered from hail. He buys these grapes from the same parcels since 2009 in La Chapelle de Guinchay near the family house of Jules Chauvet. The bottle is a bit reductive at opening, he says. Julien named this cuvée Ultimatum Climat because in 2009 there was this conference on the climate in Copenhagen and there is also a play of words with the climat in the Burgundian sense, the one of a parcel on its terroir, because at the same time Burgundy pushed to have its
__ Bourgogne Rouge Les Crays 2018, bottled 2 weeks before. 12 000 bottles. This bottle was also opened a few days ago. Purchased grapes, from two places, Saint-Gengoux-le-National, a limestone terroir on upper slopes, good for whites, it's 20 kilometers north west from here and it yields aromatics on reds that are very floral and aerial (it's the only red parcel over there) and another place 10 km from here with young vines (aged 4) on shallow earth and limestone rocks underneath with red clay rich in iron. And he just got recently a parcel near Mancey (10 km north) which has been replanted by a friend with massal selections from his own best wood (Julien created a vine conservatory in the clos 15 years ago), it's too young for now but later he'll put the grapes in this cuvée, from his first impressions it should be terrific. It happens that the 3 parcels belonging to 3 different owners are names Les Crays or Les Cras, so it's meant for this cuvée...
__ Bourgogne, Cuvée Auguste 2018, bottled earlier than usual, 15 days before this visit. Made from 1,2 hectare (on the Clos) of pinots fins, an old branch in the genealogy of Pinot Noir, planted by his grandfather in 1950. From this surface he makes from 3000 to 5000 bottles, depends of the year. Very saline, here, B. says, Julien says that's typical for the Clos. tHe Pinot Fin is pretty rare nowadays, you find some at La romanée Conti, Lalou Bize-Leroy also as well as Comte Armand and that's all. The bunches are rather long with tightly packed berries, it's pretty tricky to work with it because the number of bunches varies widely, from 5 to 20, you never know in advance, and each vine does as it pleases, so on these vines you don't do like usual, you leave everything otherwise you end up with yields of 5 ho/ha. Another thing unuisual is that the vine grows fast and high and then the branches fall back, you need more work, more wires, and trim them very early, especially that the tendrils grow much later than usual, so the cane doesn't attach itself.
__ Mâcon Cruzille Manganite 2017, Gamay à Petits Grains on limestone, this type of Gamay is a local sub-variety indigenous to the northern Mâconnais region. Empyreumatic aromas on the nose, very interesting. He says you find that also on Pineau d'Aunis and Syrah in high elevation. It is said you need 130 kilograms to make 100 liters and with these grapes you need 180 kg to make 100 liters. this sub-variety has disappeared because of the low yields but he says in matter of structure it's very qualitative. On the other Gamay he used 20 different types of Gamay but on this cuvée only one. Ages also very well. Super good wine, really superb. 35 €. He says the bottles are reserved from year to year except for 300 bottles he sells to visitors here in the domaine.
__ Mâcon Rouge, Cuvée 910 2018, picked september 8 2018, and 910 is the year the Clos of this domaine was created by the monks of Cluny. At the time in the 10th century both red and white were complanted in the vineyard. This cuvée is a revival of this white-red complantation, but given that today the whites and reds are in separate parcels, he picks a bit in each parcel along a week and puts all the grapes together in the same fermenter, there are 3 main varieties, Chardonnay, Gamay and Pinot Noir, but each from several sub-varieties, makes maybe 40 different total. Short vinification, they take out the juice continuously from the fermenter to avoid color and tannin. The color is quite magic, like a cuvée corail from Jura. Super nice wine, vibrant touch in the mouth. 29 €.
__ Marc de Bourgogne 2002, 15 years élevage. 41 % alc. Elevage in barrel without topping up (they loose 20 % of the volume). 254 bottles of this. Along the years the ethers which carry a burning feel have evaporated, in the mouth there's an acidulous and angular feel on the palate, very nice and intense. 65 € (includes 15 € of taxes which the French administration levies on every bottle...).
1247 climats registered on the UNESCO World Heritage list... His buyers was also excited to have a label which was not classical, so they kept the cuvée along the years. It's a blend of Beaujolais & Chénas but with the hail & frost the ratio of each is changing. 15 000 bottles, bottled at once, unfiltered and no SO2 added, like all the reds. Super good, love it ! What a nose also ! Lacework mouth with freshness and silky tannins, highly recommended ! 15 €. He says there's a little bit of oxidative note (at the end of the mouth, with an inky, pencil-lead expression), he says it is accentuated by the granite. On these soils there are first 3 meters of granite gravel, these are black and pink gravels, then 2 meters of clay and lastly the granite table. The 2017 are still in the cellar, they're not bottled yet, they made only 5 to 10 ho/ha that year because of hail then drought, they make 15 % and will need time (and in 2017 he hadn't yet the temperature control in the vat room). They will be good but more concentrated. And he says there is a need to adapt, for example he makes wines with 3 % alcohol more that his grandfather because of the raising temperatures, Pierre Guillot would often pick at 10,5 or 11, the good years at 12,5 % but rarely. They opened a 1970 at 10,5 % for the verticale, it was great with small red fruit aromas, elegant, everything... In 2013 a cold year he made a 10,5 % wine in Leynes, it was beautiful, but they picked october 19.
Super good, fresh with chalky tannins incidently (that's interesting because that's really how i feel the wine and chalky tannins is tannins crayeux in French). 20 €. Seems really ready to drink already. 13,8 % but you don't feel it, really.
Speaking of exports, Japan comes first with Oeno Connexion, and Uki & Ken in Hokkaido (this couple are the 1st individual importer world wide in terms of volume), then in the U.S. Chambers Street Wines, Camille Rivière, Percy Selections, also Canade (SAQ, LCBO), Denmark and a string of different countries all over the world. In Paris many different venues including Le Verre Volé, Chateaubriand, Le Baratin, Le Rubis, Le Paul Bert, Crus et Découvertes, Les Résistants, Gare au Gorille...
__ Fine de Bourgogne 2004, distillated from turbid wines, i understand from the bottom of the barrels and foudres. Intense on the nose, same swallowed, so good and long. Julien says it should be served at 12 C and we have it warmer than that.
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