Chanson gets back on track

A new winery, better vineyard management and unique grape refrigeration device have helped Burgundy’s Domaine Chanson to enter a new quality era.

Domaine Chanson’s historic base in Beaune

“After 15 years now we can say that we are exactly at the right point in the management of our vineyards,” declared Chanson president Gilles de Courcel as he outlined developments since the company was bought by Société Jacques Bollinger of Champagne fame in 1999.

Chanson’s winemaking and vineyard operations have been overseen from the start by Jean-Pierre Confuron from Vosne-Romanée’s Domaine Confuron-Cotetidot, who originally advised the Bollinger team on its Burgundian purchase.

“For me, 70% of quality comes in the vineyard,” remarked Confuron, who explained that his first step had been to stop spraying herbicides from 2000 onwards. This year will see the domaine run entirely according to organic principles, although it remains uncertified.

According to de Courcel, “You could see the real change at Chanson by the 2005 vintage.” Quality was able to improve further with the completion of a new winery in Savigny-Les-Beaune by 2010, which now vinifies 95% of the domaine’s wine.

In 2006 the domaine expanded from 38 hectares to 45ha thanks to the purchase of various sites at the southern end of its Côte de Beaune heartland, including premiers crus Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières and Chassagne-Montrachet Les Chevenottes.

With its own vineyards accounting for around 20% of total Chanson production, de Courcel highlighted an important development in the way his company works with its 91 growers, who are spread largely across the Côte de Nuits and Chablis.

“We’ve decided that with every single wine from our domaine we should have control over the vinification so we’ve stopped buying finished wine from our growers,” he reported.

“Chanson used to be an old, traditional négociant, but we wanted the word négociant to disappear from our vocabulary,” continued de Courcel. “We are securing plots of vineyard from growers and making sure they are properly harvested to make our own wine. We have some wonderful plots of vineyard to control now.”

A strong advocate of whole bunch fermentation for the domaine’s red wines, Confuron has also developed what he describes as a “refrigeration tunnel”, claiming that the device is unique to Chanson.

Used in experiments since 2011 and deployed fully from the 2014 vintage, the system uses liquid nitrogen, allowing the grapes to spend two minutes at temperatures of -180°C, which kills bacteria and brings their internal temperature down from around 25°C to 8-10°C.

Suggesting that this was simply a more hi-tech, controlled version of the outdoor vats traditionally used in Burgundian vineyards, Confuron explained that the approach allowed a longer alcoholic fermentation, thereby helping to improve aroma, freshness and texture in the wines.

De Courcel elaborated further on the plan behind this combination of extreme cold maceration and whole cluster fermentation, observing: “We want to bring this fruity, fresh characteristic to the wine that shows when it’s young, but more importantly when it ages in five to 10 years time. That is our aim, to make sure the wines appeal at every stage of their life.”

As for the 2013 wines, which are currently being shown to the market for the first time, Confuron described the hail-struck year as “my hardest vintage”. With alcohol levels consistently below 13% abv and acidity high, he remarked: “We are coming back to the ‘70s and ‘80s with our balance.”

Suggesting that 2013 offered wines that would appeal to “the real amateurs of Burgundy wines,” Confuron concluded: “The perception of the wine is better than ’09 for me – you feel more the terroir than in these warmer vintages.”