 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
|
Vine Connections | Wine | Burgundy| Domaine St. Jacques
|
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||||
In 1955, after developing a passion for wine while living in Monthelie, Christophe Grandmougin decided to invest in his own vineyards. He fell in love with a beautiful property in Rully, and he named it Domaine Saint-Jacques because the oldest portion of the property was apparently one of the many stops on the traditional pilgrimage route to St. Jacques de Compostelle in Spain. The estate came with 1.5 hectares of 40 year-old Chardonnay vines. Over the next 15 years, Christophe Grandmougin planted another 5.5 hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Portions of the property are quite old: the cellars date to the 14th century, the house dates to the 17th century and the cuverie to the 18th century. Prior to the phylloxera epidemic in the late 19th century, the estate worked over 100 hectares, but did not make wine, opting to sell the entire production, mostly in must, to various négociants in Beaune.
From 1955 to 1979, Christophe Grandmougin developed a strong private clientele, selling approximately 60% to private customers and just 40% to négociants. In 1979 he retired and put his vineyards in the hands of neighboring winemakers under sharecropping contracts. At the time, his son Christophe-Jean Grandmougin was just 10 years old, and although he already seemed motivated to take over someday, he was still a little too young. When Christophe-Jean turned 16, he began his viticulture and oenology education at the technical high school in Beaune.
After gaining several years of valuable experience at internships in Côte Rotie and in Burgundy, Christophe-Jean took over his father’s estate in Rully in 1991 when the sharecropping contracts came to an end. It was clear to Christophe-Jean from day one that there were many changes to be made in the vineyards to re-establish the natural balance of the soil to produce the purest of fruit. He immediately reduced the number of treatments and limited yields through severe pruning and de-budding. It takes years of gradual transition to organic independence for soils which have been heavily dosed with chemical products. Over the last ten years Christophe-Jean has been working his 7.9 ha. of vineyards with an organic philosophy, and in 2002 one half of the estate vineyards will be fully organic. The other half will follow over the next few years.
Christophe-Jean’s winemaking philosophy follows the same theme of "natural" practices. He harvests by hand into 50-pound bins, completely destems the grapes and ferments in open-top wood foudres using only native yeasts. With the Rully Blanc Ier Cru "Marissou" he employs batonnage in most vintages, and the Rully Rouge Ier Cru "La Fosse" receives pumpovers, cap-punching, and just one racking prior to bottling. He prefers to use no more than 20% new oak in most vintages, with the rest of the wine developing in 2-7 year old barriques. Total production averages a mere 600 cases per harvest.
Home | Our Wine | Our Sake | Press & Reviews | Our Distributors | Contact Us | Sitemap
Vine Connections
Phone: 415-332-8466, Fax: 415-332-8668, Email: info@vineconnections.com
Copyright © 1999-2007 by Vine Connections, All rights reserved