La Romanée

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

La Romanée is a Grand Cru classified vineyard on the Côte d'Or in French Burgundy . It is located in the municipality of Vosne-Romanée , has an area of ​​0.8452 hectares and its own appellation . This makes La Romanée the smallest vineyard with Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC for short) status in all of France. Only red wine is produced .

Location, climate and soil

The La Romanée vineyard is located on a gently sloping eastern slope at an altitude of 275 to 300 m above sea level . In the north it borders on the Grand Cru location Richebourg . To the east, the site is directly adjacent to the famous Romanée-Conti Grand Cru site . In the south is the Grand Cru location La Grande Rue . La Romanée is a monopoly owned by the Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair winery .

The climate is assigned to the Burgundian transitional climate , in which continental influences predominate over maritime ones. The mostly dry and hot summers allow the Pinot Noir to ripen, but great vintages are only created when there is no rain in autumn to impair the harvest. Due to the pure east location, the microclimate is relatively cool, but particularly sunny. Located just below the cut of the Combe de Concoeur , Romanée-Saint-Vivant is protected from night winds and late frosts.

The higher part of the vineyard rests on an oolite plinth from the Bathonium . The subsoil of the deeper part of the site is on Premeaux limestone. The brown, loamy-chalky rendzina layer of La Romanée is significantly thinner in the upper part than in the lower part.

Wine

La Romanée is usually made exclusively from Pinot Noir . As more varieties are Pinot Liébault and Pinot Beurot admitted. In theory, up to 15% white grapes ( Chardonnay , Pinot gris and Pinot blanc ) can be used. The natural alcohol content must be at least 11.5  percent by volume. A chaptalization is - as everywhere in Burgundy - allowed. In the case of artificial enrichment with dry sugar, a maximum alcohol content of 14.5 ° is specified. The annual base yield is 35 hectoliters per hectare. This may be exceeded by a maximum of 20%. From 2003 to 2007 an average of 31 hectoliters were produced from this vineyard annually. That is 34 hl / ha. The Grand Cru delivers a good 4,030 bottles per year.

history

The history of the Grand Cru vineyards of Vosne-Romanée is inextricably linked with the abbeys of Cîteaux and Saint-Vivant in what is now Curtil-Vergy . On November 13, 1131, Hugo II, Duke of Burgundy bequeathed important lands to the monastery of Saint-Vivant in the area of ​​the present-day communes of Flagey-Echézeaux and Vosne-Romanée. The monks planted various vineyards over the years. In 1232 the monastery received the Cloux de Saint-Vivant vineyard as a gift from Alix de Vergy , second wife of Otto III of Burgundy . According to a list from 1512, the Cloux de Saint-Vivant vineyard consisted of the districts Le Cloux des cinq Journaux , Le Cloux des quatre Journaux , Le Cloux des neuf Journaux and le Cloux du Moytant. While the parcel of Le Cloux des cinq Journaux (1.71 hectares) was sold to Daniel Cousin in 1584 and later became the nucleus of the Romanée-Conti site, the remaining parcels remained in the possession of the monastery. The name Romanée de Saint-Vivant is mentioned in writing for the first time in a lease from 1765. At the same time, within the vineyard known today as Richebourg, there was a district called Aux Échanges , which is considered the origin of La Romanée, and was 1 ouvrée (one ouvrée = 0.428 hectares).

The monasteries operated viticulture until 1791. In Revolutionary France , the Church's properties were declared national goods and auctioned. Aux Échanges was acquired by Madame Lamy de Samery. Since their children had to flee due to the turmoil of the revolution, the winery was confiscated again after de Samery's death in 1797 and sold to the wine merchants Claude-François Viénot-Rameau and Bruet-Crétinet. Only 3 years later, the situation went to Nicolas-Guillaume de Basire. When his daughter married General Louis Liger-Belair, the property passed to the Liger-Belair family. Over the next 12 years he gradually acquired small plots. In July 1827 Liger-Belair was able to register the La Romanée location in the municipality's land register as his sole property.

The following crises, such as the phylloxera disaster , the appearance of powdery mildew and downy mildew as well as the First World War forced the family to sell some of their vineyards, also because of inheritance disputes (after the death of Henri Liger-Belair in 1924 and his widow in 1931 were two of the ten Children not yet of legal age). The winemaker René Engel was interested in the La Romanée site. During the auction, however, the vineyard was acquired by Just Liger-Belair, a priest. He leased the vineyard to the Forey family, who also carried out the vinification; However, expansion and bottling was carried out by various dealers, u. a. Maison Leroy 1950–1962, 1963–1975 by Maison Bichot, 1976 to 2001 by Bouchard Pere & Fils. After Just Liger-Belair's death in 1991, his nephew Viscount Henri Liger-Belair inherited the location. His son Louis-Michel Liger-Belair has been responsible for vines and winemaking since 2002, but had to hand over half of the harvest to Bouchard Pere & Fils until 2005. Only since 2006 there has been a single bottling by Liger-Belair.

The La Romanée site received the status of a Grand Cru on September 11, 1936. The decree on the Contrôlée appellation also covers the neighboring Grand Cru sites La Tâche , Richebourg , Romanée-Conti and Romanée-Saint-Vivant .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jancis Robinson: The Oxford Wine Lexicon. Hallwag Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7742-0914-6 , p. 812 f.
  2. ↑ a b c Decree on the Romanée-Saint-Vivant, Richebourg, Romanée-Conti, La Romanée and La Tâche appellations (PDF), accessed on October 23, 2009.