LE CHAPITRE 2018 (Domaine Sylvain PATAILLE)

TERROIR

LE CHAPITRE comes from a blend of vines planted between 1950 and 1990 on the eponymous locality. The latter, located at the northern end of Chenôve and close to the Clos du Roy locality, is not included in the Marsannay designation, to the great displeasure of Sylvain PATAILLE. The latter considers that its soil is of excellent quality, it is the same as the one of Clos du Roy, and it is moreover naturally warmer than the other places of Marsannay, it is there that the harvests are made first. Sylvain judges the wines from this plot to be finer and even more elegant than those from the Clos du Roy climate.

TERROIR

The place Le Chapitre has almost the same terroir as the one of the place Clos du Roy : it is covered with a ten meters thick layer of bedded periglacial scree from the last Quaternary glacial period that happened 20,000 years ago : it is made up of gravel and limestone gravel that the successive freeze and unfreeze episodes have detached from the bedrock, causing them to accumulate on the slopes and at their foot.
However, at the bottom of the plot, the soil offers a thick layer of salmon marl dating from the Oligocene (-33 to -23 Ma).

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The 2018 vintage does not carry the Bio label because the estate lost its Ecocert certification in 2016, a terrible year for the French vineyard due to hail and frost. A difficult decision to take but almost inevitable to save what was left of the 2016 harvest. The Ecocert certification should be labelled in 2020.

The grapes, after harvest, are carefully sorted but they are not destemmed. The whole bunches are vatted for a several weeks maceration with the alcoholic fermentation ensured by the native yeasts. The must is then racked into old oak barrels for an 18-month ageing phase during which the malolactic fermentation ends.
At the end of maturation phase, the must is drawn off and bottled without fining or filtration but with a slight addition of SO2 to stabilize the wine and guarantee its longevity.