Sylvain Morey Chassagne-Montrachet Blanc 1er Cru "Champs-Gains” BLANC 2019
About the wine:
Sylvain owns .39 hectares of Champs Gains located just south of the village. The vineyards here are quite old, about 60 years old (as of 2016) and typically generate a wine that is quite full-bodied with a solid mineral structure. About 20 cases a year are available for the US market.
• Appellation: AOC Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru
• Encépagement: Chardonnay (100%)
In The Vineyard:
• Parcel Names, Slopes, and Locations: From .39 ha of vines in the Champs Gains 1er Cru
• Soil Types and Compositions: Limestone-clay
• Vine Age, Training, and Density: Trained in Guyot and planted in 1952 at 10,000 vines/ha
• Average Yields: 50 hl/ha
• Average Harvest Date and Type: Manual harvest, early-mid September
In The Cellar:
• Fermentation: Wine ferments spontaneously in 350-l oak barrels (25% new)
• Pressing: Pneumatic, whole-cluster direct pressing
• Time on Lees: Wine remains on its lees until assemblage prior to bottling
• Malolactic Fermentation: Spontaneous, in barrel in the spring
• Élevage: 18 months in 350-l oak barrels (25% new) followed by 2 months in stainless-steel tanks
• Press Wine: Blended after pressing
• Fining and Filtration: Fined with Casein and unfiltered
• Sulfur: Applied at harvest, during élevage, and at bottling, 20-25 mg/l free
In The Glass:
Planted by my Sylvain's grandfather Albert Morey, this old vine- yard with deep, rich and stony soils is always a little earlier to rip- en than its neighbour, En Caillerets, but give a full and powerful wine that balances its full body with a fine mineral structure.
About the producer:
Two of the hallmarks of Burgundy are the minuscule size and the fractured distribution of the small domains that line the Cote d’Or. Centuries of division by inheritance and often family discord have fractured once-larger land holdings into microscopic parcels. Domains have become so small (and their fractured holding so atomic) that it is has become doubtful how these domains can continue to be passed down to the next generation. In the case of Domaine Sylvain Morey, this difficult tradition continues with the dissolution of Domaine Jean-Marc Morey. Jean-Marc’s son Sylvain and his sister Caroline split their father’s holdings in 2014, making this already small family domaine much smaller. (Domaine Jean-Marc Morey was founded in 1981 when Domaine Albert Morey was split between his two sons Jean-Marc and Bernard.) We feel fortunate to continue our relationship with these familiar family parcels, however small they may be, through the impressive and thoughtful work of Sylvain.