Domaine Paul Garaudet

Village:
Monthelie
Appellation:
10.5ha
Monthelie
Monthelie 1er Cru
Volnay
Pommard
Meursault
Bourgogne Blanc
Puligny-Montrachet
Grower:
Paul Garaudet
Website:
http://www.paulgaraudet.com/accueil-en.html
Downloadable PDF

Paul Garaudet is the 4th generation in his family to make wine in Monthelie. His 10 hectares of vineyards are made up of many small parcels that are spread throughout the appellations of Bourgogne, Monthelie, Monthelie 1er Cru, Volnay, Pommard, Meursault and Puligny Montrachet. Paul has served as the President of the Wine Growers Syndicate of Monthelie. He is a great champion of Burgundy’s wines and carries on in the long tradition of Burgundy vinegrowers who put observation and stewardship of their vineyards at the core of their work. The harvest is made by hand.

Read Paul’s comments in the Burgundy Vintage Reports

Bourgogne Blanc

Paul Garaudet farms 1 hectare of Chardonnay in the village of Meursault at the lower elevations where the vineyards are classified as Bourgogne Blanc. The age of the vines ranges between 35 and 65 years. After a short debourbage of the must, the alcoholic and malo-lactic fermentations are carried out in Vosges and Allier oak barrels. The wine is then matured in barrel for at least a year with regular stirring of the lies. The wine is fined and lightly filtered before bottling.

Meursault “Limozin”

Paul Garaudet farms .25 hectares of Chardonnay in the Meursault “climat” of Limozin. It is located just below the 1er Cru “Les Genevrières Dessous.” The age of the vines ranges between 35 and 65 years. After a short debourbage of the must, the alcoholic and malo-lactic fermentations are carried out in Vosges and Allier oak barrels. The wine is then matured in barrel for at least a year with regular stirring of the lies. The wine is fined and lightly filtered before bottling. The quiet village of Monthelie lies nestled in hills that are set back from the Route Nationale. Its vineyards are planted at elevations ranging from 230 meters to 370 meters and are bordered by Volnay, Meursault and Auxey-Duresses. The appellation is comprised of 114 hectares in Monthelie Village and 31 hectares in Monthelie 1er Cru.

Monthelie “Cuvée Paul”

Paul Garaudet farms 2.10 hectares in appellation Monthelie. It is a mix of parcels with a variety of exposures and soils of Oxfordian Marne and “alluvions anciennes.” The vineyards were planted by Paul’s grandparents and the age of the vines ranges between 50 and 80 years. The fermentation is carried out in stainless steel vats with maceration extended to between 18 and 21 days. The wine is then matured in Tronçais oak barrels, one third of which are new, for 15 months (two winters). Clarification is achieved naturally in this way and the wine is bottled without fining or filtration.

Monthelie 1er Cru “Le Meix Bataille”

The 1er Cru “Le Meix Bataille” constitutes 2.27 hectares, and Paul Garaudet farms .40 hectares. He produces approximately 175 cases of wine per year from these vines. His vineyard, whose soil is a mixture of clay and limestone, has southern exposure and the vines have an average age of thirty years. The fermentation is carried out in stainless steel vats with maceration extended to between 18 and 21 days. The wine is then matured in Tronçais oak barrels, one third of which are new, for 15 months (two winters). Clarification is achieved naturally in this way and the wine is bottled without fining or filtration.

Pommard

The Pommard is produced from one hectare of vines. The grapes receive a pre-fermentation maceration at cold temperatures for a week before fermentation begins. The maceration lasts about two weeks and after pressing, the wine is matured for about sixteen months (two winters) in Tronçais oak barrels. In this way, clarification is achieved naturally and the wine is bottled without fining or filtration. Paul matures the wine in his cellar for a couple of years before release.

Region: Bourgogne

The wine region of Burgundy extends from the town of Chatillon sur Seine in the north to Lyon in the south, though; I prefer to put the southern boundary at Macon, and in this way leave the Beaujolais region as a separate entity. Thus, Burgundy includes the wine regions of Côtes de Chatillon, Yonne, Côte d’Or, Côte Chalonnaise, Côtes du Couchey and Maconnais. The vast majority of Burgundy’s wines are produced from three grape varieties: Aligoté, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and they are produced without blending the different grape types. The result, therefore, is a mapping of these three grape types onto the whole range of Burgundy’s vineyards which consequently offers the wine lover a unique window through which to notice and appreciate the concept of terroir. The difference in taste between Chardonnay grown in Chablis and Chardonnay grown in Macon is something that will always delight me...

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The Burgundy vineyards have been intimately worked and studied for many centuries which has resulted in a complex and highly detailed system of nomenclature, one that beginning in the 1930’s the INAO has tried to formalize into a logical network of “appellations controlees”. The system of appellations is uniform in its general outline for Burgundy’s different wine regions, but much less uniform in its application. For example, each of the Premier Cru vineyards in the Côte D’Or and Côte Chalonnaise is associated with its village of origin and corresponds specifically to one plot of land within that village, whereas in the Yonne or Chablis to be exact, the Premier Cru vineyards never make reference to their villages of origin and moreover, the 79 Premier Cru vineyards typically use only 17 names. So, putting differences aside and embracing contradiction, one can say with confidence that the overall appellation structure is organized from the general to the specific. At the most general level, vineyards from any of the Burgundy wine regions can produce white, red, rosé or sparkling wines with the Bourgogne appellation. At the first level of specificity (and beginning of disparity among the regions), there are 24 regional appellations, each of which is comprised of a group of villages which share a common appellation name. Two examples, which illustrate the possible variation in size, are Côtes de Nuits Villages and Macon-Villages. Côtes de Nuits Villages includes nine villages whereas Macon-Villages includes 83 villages. At the next level of specificity, there are 44 local appellations, each of which corresponds to a specific village such as Gevrey-Chambertin and Chassagne-Montrachet. Within the local appellation structure, but higher up the hierarchal scale, there are 750 Premier Cru appellations which mark specific vineyard boundaries within a particular village. Examples are Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru “Petite Chapelle” and Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru“Les Chenevottes”. At the highest level of the paradigm, there are 33 Grand Cru appellations which similarly mark specific vineyard boundaries within a specific village (or spanning two!).

Examples of Grand Cru vineyards are Mazis-Chambertin and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. One of the lovely idiosyncrasies is evident from these examples; namely, why the grand cru vineyard “climat” names Chambertin and Montrachet are attached to their respective communes at all appellation levels.

If one is interested and persistent enough to comprehend the lay of the land in terms of its geography, geology and nomenclature, the picture quickly becomes much more complex when the land is divided between the many thousands of Burgundian wine-growers. The average land holding in Burgundy is two hectares (five acres) and in some of the most illustrious vineyards such as Batard-Montrachet a mere twelve hectares can be divided among 55 growers.

A deep knowledge of the wines produced in Burgundy, it is easy to see, would be best left up to those who have lots of free time. People that are teachers or NBA basketball players might have enough vacation time to tackle such a project, but only the NBA player would have the money to taste the wines. Happily, even without four months of vacation or enormous resources, the wines of Burgundy are there to give us all the taste of one of the vine’s favorite places on earth.

Burgundy wine growers certainly have no special claim to the concept of terroir, but they have embraced the notion of terroir in a way that brings it to our attention and gives us much to think about. If our attention is turned to the infinite variations of our mother earth and its ability to give these variations expression through the grape vine and its transformation into wine, then what a lovely reminder that we are from the earth, nourished by the earth and will return to it.