Bonneau du Martray
Bonneau du Martray is a family business run by Jean-Charles le Bault de la Morinière and one of the most famous wineries in Burgundy . In the basement, Charles' son, Eric, has taken over responsibility. The winery owns eleven hectares of prime locations in the immediate vicinity of the municipality of Pernand-Vergelesses . The estate only markets wines from Grand Cru sites and is therefore even more consistent than the well-known Domaine de la Romanée-Conti , which also has a Premier Cru wine in its range with the Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Cuvée Duvault-Blochet .
history
The history of the winery is closely linked to the history of the Grand Cru location Corton-Charlemagne . Until the French Revolution , the location was owned by the Church. The Corton Lage, estimated at 10,800 livres, was sold as a national biennium. A considerable part went to the Bonneau-Véry family. In his work Histoire et statistiques de la vigne et des grands vins de la Côte-d'Or published in 1855 , MJ Lavalle spoke of a total of 19.7 hectares that belonged to the family in this location. Together with other vineyards, the former winery covered almost 24 hectares.
As a result of the phylloxera crisis , compromises in succession and the global economic crisis, the family's property shrank. In 1969 the Countess and wife of Jean le Bault de la Morinière inherited eleven hectares from her uncle René Bonneau du Martray. The count, who lives in Paris, studied oenology and began bottling estate in the 1970s.
In 1994 his son Jean-Charles took over the management of the estate. The brothers Bernard and Jean-Pierre Bruchon work in the wine cellar.
The wines
The average age of the vines is 45 years. Both red wine from the Pinot Noir grape and white wine from the Chardonnay grape are produced .
Quality thinking is high. In the rainy autumn of 1993 a low-flying helicopter dried the grapes; a practice that was taken over by Château Pétrus and has since been used several times.
The 100 percent destemmed grapes ferment in steel tanks. The estate has a total of 16 plots in the Corton-Charlemagne location, which are individually developed and only blended into a wine shortly before bottling. The individual batches mature in barriques for 12-18 months .
When pressing the red wines of the Corton site , Bonneau du Martray removes the stems to give the wine a little more elegance. The mash fermentation is temperature controlled. The wine matures in barriques for 12-18 months .
literature
- Clive Coates : The wines of Burgundy . 1st edition. University of California Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25050-5 .
- Clive Coates: Cote d'Or. A celebration of the great wines of Burgundy . 1st edition. University of California Press, 1997, ISBN 0-520-21251-7 .