The vineyard of 41 hectares mainly surrounds the Château, built in the 16th Century at the southern edge of the Côte de Beaune.
This is a village appellation of Côte de Beaune, Côte d'Or.
This appellation includes 11 Premier Cru "climats", 280.57 hectares of red wines (109.69 in Premier Cru) and 47.70 hectares of white wines (12.80 hectares in Premier Cru).
This wine is produced on the villages of Santenay and Remigny.
Grapes were harvested on August 2020, the 31st, by hand and totally destemmed to avoid any kind of bitterness or unwanted vegetal aromas.
Maceration lasted about 3 weeks in order to get wines with a deep color, complex aromas and as a consequence a good ageing potential.
Traditional vinification was carried out in temperature-controlled concrete vats – that allowed us to master the fermentation temperatures thanks to the great inertia of concrete - with daily pumping-over and stirring occasionally. Alternating those two methods is a good way to obtain balanced wines because the tannins are not too much extracted.
Then the wine was aged for 10 months in oak barrels including 20% new oak.
For long time in Burgundy we had not seen such variations in the grapes than in the 2020 harvests.
It was an early vintage, with another very mild winter and therefore an early start to the growth cycle.
A rainy, cool May did not slow the vines down, and temperatures quickly rose again. The summer was one of the hottest we have experienced.
The vines reacted in very different ways depending on the sector and it was necessary to monitor the grapes’ phenolic maturity right up to the harvests, since in some cases the berries suffered significant water stress, resulting in delays in ripening and lower yields.
On the whole, the vines in Rully, Mercurey and Maranges held up well because several of our terroirs benefit from subterranean water sources which partially alleviated the stress.
But the fact remains that the expression of aromatic, phenolic and technological maturity was very different from previous years and the evolution of each parameter had to be closely monitored. Once again, the choice of harvest date was decisive in ensuring the quality of the future wines. Especially since there were sometimes significant differences in ripeness within the same plot.
Harvesting began on 24 August and ended on 16 September. Some sectors required patience: it was important not to harvest too quickly. The grapes were in an excellent state of health, but thorough sorting was necessary to separate berries that were still pink and yet side by side with ripe grapes.
Ultimately, yields were particularly reduced for the reds.
The character of the 2020 vintage will gradually be revealed as it undergoes barrel-ageing, but we can already appreciate it for its balance, promising colours, concentration and generous aromatic expression.