Last week in Mâcon, the weather was scorching with the temperature gauge hitting 38 degrees. This week was considerably more uncertain. Our first full day of the tour was focussed on Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint Veran and the various villages close by. This part of Burgundy is much underrated and sits in the shadow of the prestigious names around Beaune.
Domaine Corsin was our first destination and our host was 6th generation family member – Jeremy Corsin. We took a tour of the winemaking facilities, discussed wild and commercial yeasts, understood the importance of fermenting each parcel of vines separately and discovered the destructive nature of frost and hail on yields and production. After a quick look in the barrel cellar we sat down in their wonderful tasting room and got stuck into their wines.
The quality at Domaine Corsin is exceptionally high. We tasted unoaked St Veran, old vine St Veran from two contrasting vintages and concluded with three different Pouilly-Fuissés: Vieilles Vignes and 2018 and 2013 Aux Chailloux. Aux Chailloux was awarded premier cru status in 2020.
All the wines were terrific and this was a great start to our day.
From Corsin, it was just five minutes to Domaine Nadine Ferrand – another family owned estate but with a different story. Nadine took over the running of the estate 22 years ago and combines owning and renting vineyards. Marine, her daughter, is now at the helm and runs a modern winery with just a couple of full time employees. We took a look at the vineyard by the winery as the sun was shining and got a good insight into their viticultural approach.
We tasted through a range of wines that exhibited a slightly contrasting style to Corsin and then we tucked into a very elegant buffet provided by a local traiteur. These beautiful canapés paired nicely with the Ferrand wines and we finished off with some desserts and a late harvest Chardonnay. This was dry but incredibly rich and concentrated and added to the mix of styles we had experienced.
Our third and final visit took us the village of Pouilly-Fuissé itself and the family estate of Domaine Luquet. 5th generation Christine Luquet hosted our visit and she was highly entertaining! We started off in their family vineyard right by the stunning church and then moved into the winery to avoid the heavy thunderstorms. Christine spoke about the damage caused by the storms the previous few days – 20% lost. This was particularly tragic given the devastation in 2021 and the high hopes for 2022.
Christine was very engaging, challenging and kept everyone on their toes during the tasting which was a good thing as it was our third visit of the day.