Jean-Marc Millot Bourgogne Rouge 2019
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
From vineyards in the village of Nuits St. Georges, this Bourgogne Rouge has a beautiful bouquet of raspberry, wild strawberry and redcurrant. The palate is vibrant, with hints of blood orange adding depth and complexity to the red fruit. The tannins are silky smooth with a perfect weight and density on the finish.
Quiet, unassuming, shy, yet quick to smile and jest, Jean-Marc Millot has the appearance of a young vigneron from earlier years. His hands are stained and gnarled by working with the vines, his cheeks bright rosy and complexion clear from many days in the wintry and spring-chill air. He began estate-bottling at the family domaine in 1990, working the six hectares of vines originally purchased by his grandparents after World War II. He added another 1.4 hectares when his wife inherited her share of her family's estate, and today he will tell you he has enough property: "more than eight hectares is too much for one man to work alone."
To call Jean-Marc a traditionalist would be to understate his commitment to working the land and making his wines by hand. Artisinale is perhaps the best description, but neo-Luddite would not be inappropriate. Work in the vineyards is done by hand, no tractors to help him till the soil, no pneumatic secateurs to help with pruning or harvest. The vines are tended organically without pesticides or fertilizers, and the chais shows no signs of pumps, gadgets, or fancy presses. The grape bunches are destemmed by a mechanical, not electric, device which is still turned by hand. Following the alcoholic fermentation, which includes the ancient pigeage method of Jean-Marc lowering himself into the vat to break up the cap, the wines are drained off by gravity to oak barrels for their malolactic and aging. They are tasted regularly but racked only once; just prior to being bottled and corked by hand, cask by individual cask. With yields ranging on average from 25 to 32 hectoliters per hectare, the wines are rarely anything but profound.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
The most acclaimed region of Burgundy, the Côte d’Or is defined by a long, limestone escarpment beneath the ground's surface and is home to all of Burgundy’s most famous wines. While Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are produced throughout the Côte d’Or, the north tends to excel at Pinot Noir and the south, at Chardonnay.
The northern half of the Côte d’Or is called the Côte de Nuits. Here reside most of the Pinot noir Grands Crus vineyards of Burgundy—the only one farther south, in Côte de Beaune, is Aloxe-Corton.
The Côte de Beaune is the center all of the Chardonnay Grands Crus with the exception of Le Musingy, found in Chambolle-Musigny in the Côte de Nuits, which produces both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with Grand Cru status.