Domaine de Montille Saint Aubin 1er Cru ‘En Remilly’ 2020

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

About Domaine de Montille

Domaine de Montille is renowned as one of the finest domains in Burgundy. While the origin of the Domaine goes back to 1730 about, the modern history of the domaine started in 1947, when Hubert de Montille started to make the domaine’s wines at the age of 17, due to the death of his father. Four years later he took entire responsibility of the domaine.

As the domaine consisted of only 2.5 hectares at that time, he trained as a lawyer, and continued until his retirement to work both as a lawyer in Dijon and making the wines at the domaine. Hubert’s children, Etienne and Alix (was married to Jean-Marc Roulot) started helping in the domaine at young age, and Etienne had a second job (as an investment banker). But since 1990 Etienne started to take more responsibilities, and in 1995 became a co-manager of the domaine (although he continued working simultaneously in the bank until 2001). Under his lead the domaine’s reputation soared. Over the years by means of careful acquisitions, the domaine acquired more and more prime vineyards across the Côte d’Or, with the highlights being the acquisition of a fine parcel of Puligny Cailleret in 1993, of Corton Charlemange in 2004 and parts of the Thomas-Moillard estate in 2005 – including parcels in Vosne-Romanee Les Malconsorts, Clos de Vougeot and more.

In 2012, Etienne acquired the Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet, adding another 14 ha of prime vineyards (Chevalier Montrachet, Puligny Folatières, Meursault Poruzots, Saint Aubin “en Remilly”, Clos du Chateau de Puligny Montrachet, etc…) Today Domaine de Montille consists of 37 ha of vineyards, with respectively 23 ha under Domaine de Montille and 14 under Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet labels.

In 2003 Etienne started a negociant business with Alix nameds “les Deux Montilles” which specialize in white wines. They’ve since fine-tuned this historical great domaine and set it up as one of the finest domains of Burgundy.

In the Vineyard & Winery

The biggest change applied by Etienne in the vineyards was the decision in 1995 to become organic, and in 2005 to entirely switch to biodynamic. While Hubert’s wines were famous to their ability to age gracefully but show austerity when young, Etienne’s approach is to make more accessible wines through a philosophy of better vineyards’ management, reduced yields, elimination of chemical fertilizers, careful attention to phenolic ripeness and picking date, and fine tuned extraction and wine making technics (Hubert was known to make piegeage 6 to eight times per day during fermentation, and consistently used 25-50% whole cluster berries for making the wines – Etienne reduced it to 2 times per day and uses stems between non to 100% depending to the vintage).

What remained unchanged over the years is the restrained use of new oak. The wines remain in barrels for 14-18 months and normally bottled without fining or filtration.

The 2020 Vintage at Domaine de Montille

From Burghound

“Etienne de Montille, and his chef de cave Brian Sieve, told me that 2020 “was another hot, dry and technically demanding vintage even if the viticulture itself was relatively easy due to the lack of disease pressure. The trick was to harvest each parcel at exactly the optimum moment, which is harder than it sounds and particularly so for the pinot crop. While we of course have long standing experience with each of our terroirs, growing seasons where there is hydric stress like 2020, and thus differing maturities, complicates matters significantly. In the end we chose to begin picking on the 23rd of August and we were able to pick quickly as the fruit was both ripe and spotless, so it didn’t require much more than cursory sorting. Yields were actually pretty good, though certainly not high as the chardonnay came in between 40 and 45 hl/ha and the pinot a bit lower at 30 to 35 hl/ha. While there were reports of sky-high alcohols, that wasn’t our experience as almost everything was pretty tightly bunched at between 12.8 and 13.2%. As usual, we vinified using a highly variable percentage of whole clusters, which is to say that some wines had none at all and others were fully 100%. As to the wines, they’re atypically ripe and very deeply colored yet the underlying individuality of each wine is surprisingly clear. They have excellent densities coupled with firm acidities and overall, the 2020s should age very well.” I completely agree with the de Montille team that 2020 produced an excellent set of wines that should indeed age very well.”

Where in the world is Domaine de Montille?

Domaine de Montille was originally established in Volnay, but now operates out of Puligny-Montrachet. The domaine’s holdings total 35 HA, of which 20 HA are in 1er and Grand Cru vineyards, combined with 5 HA of top village wines, and 10 HA of Bourgogne Rouge and Blanc. Among their premier crus are a small handful of top terroirs — Grèves, Taillepieds, Rugiens-Bas, and Cailleret — deemed by Etienne (and many others) to be “Grand Premier Crus” and he makes this clear by listing the vineyard name above the appellation/village on these labels. The estate holdings are also supplemented by petit négociant activity started in 2003. Originally called Deux Montilles, it is now known as Maison de Montille. The goal of the project is to isolate small, interesting and somewhat undervalued terroirs from throughout the entire Burgundy region.