Visit at Philippe Pacalet (Burgundy)

Monica and Philippe Pacalet outside the facility

Beaune, Burgundy
I dropped the other day (this was late september) for a short, unannounced visit at Philippe Pacalet's facility in downtown Beaune (rue de Chaumergy). I had not yet visited his new extension on the other side of the street and I was happy both Philippe and Monica were there and could tour me around.

The rebel winemaker and outsider who succeeded at making a brand of his name in Burgundy without owning vineyards there has longtime contracts for selected terroirs across the region, with also some grapes sourced in Beaujolais and the Rhône. This year he began picking his grapes september 20. asked about this year's particularities, he says they suffered from frost and thus have low volumes, but no other [disease] problem. There were also a few storms that made the picking and the coming and going of vehicules tricky, but this didn't impact the quality of the grapes. The alcohol level this year should be classic, he says, something like 12,5 %, which is fine for him. The 3 previous vintages were higher, they were more solar with warmer summers, in 2021 it's a comeback to something more typical of Burgundy.

Reno checking a pressing

In the main facility (which i call this way because it is the initial building they used in Beaune and it hosts also the administrative part) we saw their son Reno busy monitoring the pressing of a white, in one of these good old non-pneumatic Vaslin presses favored by many artisan vintners (they have two of them), they're very simple, reliable and easy to repair when some problem occurs. Reno (Philippe's son) has changed since I pictured him with his father a few years ago in Paris (scroll down this story) and he's now very active in the chai/cellar.

Aligoté (see the driping juice)

The pressing will take 8 hours, you can see the color of the juice on this video, it's almost black as no sulfur being sprayed on the picked bunches [sulfure and sulfites tend to clear the juices and the wines, that's one of the reasons some winemakers choose to sprinkle some on the incoming grapes]. tHey use the press manually (not using programs), upping the pressure gradually to get a slow flow of the juice. He says that with the stems, the flowing is actually relatively free of lees, they practically don't need a débourbage, just the night, the time to sleep for the staff and the following morning they fill the barrels as is. tHey taste the juice all along, especiall the start, the middle and by the end near the tail, setting the last juice aside to decide later if they keep it, use it for topping up or get rid of it.

The whites' vat room

Philippe says that this year the loss in volume was particularly felt on the whites, Chardonnay being more precautious than Pinot Noir. And vines that were pruned shortly before the frost episode had few damages, while those pruned 2-3 months before suffered a lot, but you can't prune everything late. Here on this picture you can see the surface cellar room devoted to the whites. Years ago the room was filled with tronconic fermenters, but there were issues here with the soundness of the cement slab, which didn't endure well the freguent hosing and watering needed in a chai, with leaks going through to the cellar beneath, that's why when the building on the other side of the street was available on the market in 2018, they bought it to bring there the reds and the large fermenters. This surface cellar has now a heating system that allows to keep the temperature from dropping too much in winter, the whites being subject to stalling fermentations when it gets cold.

Small fermenters

I spotted these lovely and convenient plastic fermenters (here used for to store the overflowing juice when the fermentation thunders in the barrels), they're small enough and with different capacity so that I think they'd be the perfect choice for home winemakers trying their hands with a small load of grapes. They're made by Speidel with apparently more a brewing purpose than winemaking. They remind me the (much-cheaper) plastic fermenters sold in Georgia which I saw near Kutaisi a couple years ago, also with good range of convenient volumes for home winemaking (scroll down to 21st picture in this story for the prices).

Grenier foudres

I spotted two shiny new foudres in this cellar room, and although they can be mistaken from afar for Stockinger ones, they're made by Grenier, the Burgundy cooper artisan favored by thoughtful winemakers in this country. Indeed very sophisticated vessel complete with large door in front and one medium-sized on top.

Philippe Pacalet in the new chai for the reds

We then just cross the street to have a look at the new chai for the reds. The building is so big at each level that they built up this large room inside for a better temperature and air-circulation control. They had to reinforce the cement slab here as well before doing dafely the first vinifications in 2019. tHe room inside looks to me pretty close to the other side of the street in terms of volume, but Philippe says it's wider. The chai is quiet but there will be more activity when more grapes are brought in (see in this story how busy the place typically can be at this time (this was on the other side of the street a few years back).

Macerations in progress...

It's very clean in there, they don't do any sorting here, it's all done in the vineyard, Philippe says they did it once in the chai and he hated it, it's very noisy, like you were in a plant. The best thing to do is train the pickers so that they take only the worthy bunches and grapes, and it begins with selecting pickers who like wine and understand the issues. His pickers are fed and housed, all these considerations cost more than hire workers at the lowest cost like many domaines do but the end result is at stake.
This year the volumes on certain parcels is so small that Philippe had to resort using demi-muids as fermenters, even the smallest tronconic fermenters in his vessel range would have been too large for the remaining grape load.

Looking inside a Grenier

Philippes takes off the tarpaulin covering one of the Grenier fermenters to show a batch of Corton macerating quietly, i can smell the odd CO2 when looking over the top (CO2 is supposed to be odorless but it does smell something, like a warning not to go further in the tank...). He says they do pigeage once a day, to keep the cap humid and liberate some juice as well. It's been there for a week.

Demi-muids maceration

Then Philippe walks to a comparatively-small demi-muid that was tilted vertical to turn into a fermenter, he says that's his Charmes-Chambertin, small volume indeed this year.

Charmes-Chambertin, the grapes

I love here the few white grapes lost in the middle of the Pinot Noir, these nursery hazards give the parcels their character... Philippe says it's an old parcel with Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris complanted here and there.

Bel Air

Philippe slides the cover off the next demi-muid, showing his Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru Bel Air, taken in more recently. Here also there are a few alien bunches, he points to pink grapes, Pinot Gris (see below). Not yet stomped, they leave the grapes quiet for a while.

Bel Air, the macerating grapes

Monica touring me around the cellars

I walked around the cellars, the odd thing being that you can walk from the ones under the initial location (the rooms with round 19th-century metal pillars) to the ones under the newer location (rooms with square cement columns) across the street, without leaving the cellar level. This particular room is empty because the whites here have been racked before bottling and the barrels haven't yet been filled with the whites 2020, but the cellar room should begin to fill soon after the fermentation is well advanced.

Barrel room with some reds in élevage

This is the "large" cellar room, as shown several times on past stories on Philippe Pacalet, I recognize its vibes and 19th-century character. The 2020 reds are still in their élevage stage, until well into 2022.

Other view of the large cellar room

There's a cellar room where they store their barrels of Rhône as they've been making wines from there as well, Cornas, Côte Rôtie, Condrieu. They both have been loving Chateau Grillet's Condrieu for years, Monica says this wine doesn't suit everybody, because Viognier isn't as versatile as chardonnay can be, but they vinify it in a way to get a nice tension and bitterness, not just the usual peach, apricot, candied-fruit aromas. They do the vinifications over there in the Rhône and go check the wines regularly when there's a pause in the Beaune operations.

Long passage under the street connects to other cellars

The other cellar room

We're here on the other side of the street, the cellar architecture hints at more recent construction. The barrels here were still empty on the day I visited, the 2021 red wines will come here when macerations and pressings are completed. There are other connected rooms but they don't use them, they're lower and less easy to use.

Typical harvest in Burgundy

I shot this video in the area, I asked for which domaine they were working, this was Arnoux Père & Fils. I wandered around that same day and saw other scenes, see below.

Tomoko in the chai

I also stopped unannounced at Domaine Chanterêves, a high-end négoce operated by Tomoko Kuriyama et Guillaume Bott, it's located on the outskirts of Savigny in a residential street. The building which leans against the slope is modern and elegant, it's both residential (upper levels) and chai/cellar (first level). Guillaume Bott wasn't there at the time I visited (he is still working part time at Domaine Simon Bize from what I understand) but Tomoko was there, busy overlooking a pressing and also the delivery of white juice.

Chorey juice dropping gently

What a color !

Explaining about tannin

I listen to Tomoko as she explains her work regarding tannins, she apparently devotes lots of time to transmit to the trainees (there were two of them when I was there) what she knows about winemaking and things to be careful about, like what follows. She says they avoid certain pigeage and works in a way with the press so that they don't get the extraction from the seeds at the end of the pressing. She says that people think that tannin comes mostly from the skins and the stems, it certainly all depends of the year and weather conditions in the vineyard, but actually it comes also from the seeds, and if you avoid contact between the juice and the seeds (which may happen at the end of the pressing) you avoid this problem. This issue has to do with the monomers inside the seeds, among which the catechin which is an element you find also in green tea and pepper.

Somewhere on the "route des Grands Crus"...

Small parcel being picked outside Savigny

The grape load in the gondola

Comments

[ErikVA]

Great story as usual. Do you know how often they have to top up the barrels and if natural winemakers tend to follow similar topping up schedules?

[Bert]

Thanks Erik,
I haven't any ready answer on that topic, topping up is usually done once a week if I remember but it depends of the humidity level of the cellar and of the willingness of the winemaker. Some, like Anders Frederik Steens, never top up their barrels and the wines turn out fine...

[Le Vingt]

Burgundy....I miss my homeland so much !!!