The Côte Chalonnaise, the secret garden of Aubert de Villaine

When we think of Aubert de Villaine, we can't help but think of the prestigious Romanée-Conti estate, of which he is one of the two co-managers. The famous winemaker invested in 1971 with his wife, Paméla, in a small estate in Bouzeron, the first village on the Côte Chalonnaise south of Beaune, located between Santenay, Rully and Mercurey, which has now become the flagship of the appellation.

The vines are grown exclusively on hillsides on lean soils, with a high limestone content, which gives the wines a magnificent minerality and a beautiful complexity after a few years of cellaring.

"To make great wines, it is essential to vinify healthy and highly mature grapes", likes to point out Pierre de Benoist, nephew of Aubert de Villaine in charge of the estate since 2001. "To achieve this, we have since chosen 1986 organic farming methods. Pesticides and herbicides are excluded in order to respect the natural balance. »

But the field goes further. Introduced in particular by Paméla de Villaine, who has been cultivating this small estate like her garden for years, biodynamic preparations are regularly used without any certification having been requested.

Manual harvesting, rigorous sorting, aging in tuns, oak barrels and vats for the whites are carried out with the aim of enhancing both the freshness, the fruit, the specific aromas of each wine and their finesse. Unknown to the general public, this region is today one of the last "secrets" of Burgundy, which is very media-friendly and discreetly shared by curious amateurs. And when these discreet terroirs are cultivated with the same methods as at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the result is obviously astounding.