BEAUNE 1ER CRU "LES GRÈVES" 2017 (Domaine Maillard)

TERROIR

The grapes that make up this wine come from the Les Grèves locality, very extensive and classified as 1er Cru. It owes its name to its soil nature made up of silt with fine gravel ('Les Grèves') on the surface resulting from the underlying mother rock alteration. The latter is variable depending on the parcel's location : at the top, it is made up of various marls and limestones dating from the Upper oxfordian and whose sedimentation took place 160 million years ago, and at mid-slopes, we can find an organo-detrital limestone formed in the Bathonian, during the 7 million years before the Oxfordian stage.
The subsoil's richness in faults of this premier cru locality favors a good vine rooting which maintains the latter in excellent water conditions both during hot and humid years. The wine from this locality offers a refined and silky texture.

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The grapes are harvested manually and only the most beautiful and ripe bunches are kept. They are then vatted for a 12 to 15 days maceration with temperature control and during which alcoholic fermentation takes place.

One or two punching-down operations are carried out each day to break the marc cap that forms at the tank's top in order to reintegrate it into the must and to ensure optimal extraction of color and aromas.

The must is racked to get rid of these coarse lees and then temporarily vatted for a few days before being put into 228-liter Burgundy barrels in order to complete the malolactic fermentation and to mature there for 18 months. 40% of the barrels used for the aging phase are new.

When the ageing phase is over, the must is drawn off and then bottled, it is not fined but just lightly filtered.