In the search for quality and value with Burgundy red wines, keeping an open mind often brings pleasant surprises. Consider the red wines of talented winegrowers Céline and Laurent Tripoz from the southern Burgundy region of Mâconnais. Notwithstanding the Mâconnais’ reputation for offering seas of white wines, Céline and Laurent also produce three delicious and delightful red wines. Each wine reflects a distinctive terroir.
An important part of the couple’s success lies in their long dedication to organic and biodynamic farming and winemaking. But these terrific red wines also have roots in the reawakening of Mâcon’s quality red winemaking traditions as exemplified by the group “Les Artisans Vignerons de Bourgogne du Sud.”
MÂCON’S QUALITY RED WINEMAKING TRADITIONS
During the Medieval Ages, the Catholic Church played a vital role in developing Mâcon’s grapegrowing traditions. Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Cluny (founded in 910) pursued lives committed to pray and labor. The labor included careful cultivation of the many Mâconnais vineyards donated to the Abbey by local nobles.
Under the Rule of St. Benedict, each monk could drink about a third of a bottle of wine daily with meals. The monks most likely enjoyed wines made from field blends of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Gamay. This produced pale-colored red wines with low alcohol content of 11% or less.
But the monks sold plenty of excess wine to locals. Profits piled up, and Cluny’s abbots became rich and powerful based largely on their extensive Mâconnais vineyards. They also owned more prestigious Burgundy Côte D’Or vineyards to the north. The abbots even owned the Hôtel de Cluny, an impressive Paris townhouse built over the ruins of the Roman thermal bathes.
Over the next six centuries, wine markets evolved amidst wars, epidemics and political instability. By the 17th Century, commercial wine merchants played key roles in the Mâconnais especially with red wines. Writing in a 2004 Institut National des Appellations d’Origine report, Monsieur Gérard Mottet noted that in 1620 the Mâcon aldermen specified the planting of “Petit Gamay” (a.k.a., Gamay à petits grains) grapes for the region’s red wine production.
This variety’s smaller berries have concentrated juice that creates the potential for higher quality red wines. The idea was to capitalize on the Mâconnais’ limestone and marl soils to produce distinctive red wines. This need for quality red wines (and high quality white wines made from Chardonnay) arose because Mâcon merchants were forced to compete in northern consumer markets near Paris rather than markets just to the south near Lyon.
The Lyonnais government deemed Mâcon’s wines “foreign” and subject to heavy duties. So instead of producing and selling large quantities of cheap wines to quench the thirst of Lyon’s factory workers, Mâconnais growers—building on the monks’ work—identified the best limestone hillsides to produce better quality red and white wines appealing to markets in Paris and beyond.
By the 1870’s, the Mâconnais reached its all-time height of grape production. Red wines predominated especially in northern Mâcon where Gamay plantings held sway. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines predominated in and around the city of Mâcon in the southern part of the region.
The phylloxera epidemic of the 1880’s, however, changed everything. By 1895, phylloxera mites destroyed more than two thirds of Mâconnais vineyards. Despite widespread replanting of the vineyards with phylloxera-resistant American rootstocks, the 20th century was not kind to the region.
Two world wars severely hampered the return to quality winemaking generally in the Mâcon. Instead, just to survive many growers sold grapes to local cooperatives and focused on maximizing quantity over quality. The cooperatives churned out oceans of pleasant but undistinguished white wines made from Chardonanay grown on an industrial basis. At the end of the 20th century, white wines accounted for over 90% of Mâcon’s production.
QUALITY REAWAKENING AND “LES ARTISANS VIGNERONS DE BOURGOGNE DU SUD”
Consequently, the time was right in the early 1990’s for the Mâconnais to reawaken high quality red and white wine production. As global prices rose quickly for more prestigious burgundy wines from the Côte D’Or to the north, savvy wine consumers increasingly demanded high quality, terroir-focused wines of good value. This created an opportunity for forward thinking, dedicated Mâconais growers like Céline and Laurent Tripoz. They joined Emmanuel Guillot at Domaine Guillot-Broux, Julian Guillot at Clos des Vignes du Mayne, Nicolas Maillet, Olivier Merlin at Domaine Merlin, the Bret brothers at La Soufrandière and other colleagues in “Les Artisans Vignerons de Bourgogne du Sud” (“AVBS.”).
AVBS members commit to farming with the lowest impacts on the environment. This supports biodiversity in the vineyards. As a practical matter, this means forgoing synthetic chemical applications that kill life in vineyard soils.
Instead the growers use organic applications on the vines, and, for the soils, they either plow or permit grasses to grow between vines. They also commit to taking risks to allow grapes to ripen fully on the vines before harvesting manually. The fundamental idea is to produce high quality Mâconnais wines faithfully reflecting terroir without sacrificing the diverse of personalities of each member’s styles across white, red and sparkling wines.
THE BIRTH OF DOMAINE CÉLINE AND LAURENT TRIPOZ
Laurent Tripoz was born in the Mâconnais village of Loché surrounded by vines, but neither Laurent nor Céline inherited a wine estate. Laurent trained initially as a cabinet maker, a trade he maintained professionally. At the same time he and Céline pursued their strong interest in grape growing by creating a grape vine nursery in 1986. Initially Laurent grew only Chardonnay grapes sold to the local cooperative.
“Chardonnay was in the air at the time,” Céline recalls. “Chardonnay is the solution of ease.”
But in 1990, they decided to bottle their own estate wines and quickly moved to convert the domaine to organic and biodynamic viticulture. They also chose to grow a more diverse range of grapes. Today they cultivate about 30 acres of vines comprised of Chardonnay (75%), Pinot Noir (10%), Aligoté (10%) and Gamay (5%).
“We believe that there are heterogeneous terroirs in Mâcon suitable for different wines and grape varieties,” Céline says.
DELICIOUS MÂCONNAIS RED WINES FROM CÉLINE AND LAURENT TRIPOZ
The Tripoz red wines highlight those distinct terroirs starting with two Gamay wines.
“We found that the expressions of our two Gamay’s plots are very different,” Céline notes. “We wanted to assemble them initially, to make a larger cuvée in volume. But we realized that one would bring nothing to the other while they each had specific, well-ma
rked characteristics.”
The 2018 Céline et Laurent Tripoz, Mâcon-Serrières “Les Graves” comes from 45-year old Gamay vines growing on granite soils on the hillsides in the southwestern corner of the Mâconnais. The Mâcon-Serrières area has a relatively cooler climate than the rest of Mâcon.
After manual harvesting, the Gamay grapes fermented in whole clusters with indigenous yeasts. The wine aged on the lees for 11 months. Bottling occurred with minimal sulfites. (Total SO2: 10mg/l; PH: 3.7). The wine has only 11.8% alcohol by volume.
This delicious wine’s light ruby color offers bright red fruit aromas with meaty, earthy notes. Pure red fruit flavors of tart raspberries follow. Terrific freshness and firm, yet fine tannins add balance. A fun, easy drinking wine with distinctive personality.
The 2018 Céline et Laurent Tripoz, Mâcon “Les Pierrières” (average national price on winesearcher.com: $26) comes from 45-year olf Gamay vines grown in a vineyard in Charnay, a village near the town of Mâcon itself. The area features clay soils rich with high levels of limestone. Again the grapes fermented in whole bunches with indigenous yeasts. The new wine aged on the lees in older oak barrels. Bottled with minimal sulfites (Total SO2: 12mg/l; PH: 3.09). Only 12.3% alcohol by volume.
The wine’s saturated, dark ruby color offers dark red fruit aromas with earthy notes. In the glass, pure, robust flavors of ripe strawberries and dark black cherries balance with angular, zesty acidity and fine tannins. The fruity finish lingers deliciously. A succulent, fruity wine and a sheer delight to drink.
The 2018 Céline et Laurent Tripoz, Bourgogne Rouge “Chant de la Tour” (avaerge national price on winesearcher.com: $32) comes from Pinot Noir vines planted about 20 years ago.
“Our Pinot Noir vines are relatively young,” Céline notes. ‘Therefore destemming the grapes makes it possible to avoid the herbaceous tastes of “young” stems, and also makes it possible to obtain more color in the wine.’
Cold vatting and maceration for 21 days maximized the extraction of color and sweetness from the grapes. Fermentation again occurred with indigenous yeasts. Aging took place in older oak barrels for eleven months.
The wine’s ruby color offers aromas of ripe strawberries and raspberries with smoky notes. In the glass, pure fruit flavors of black cherry confiture follow with rich concentration. Bright, vibrant acidity and fine tannins deliver elegant balance and backbone. The wine’s fruity finish lingers beautifully. A wine that will benefit from either a few hours of decanting if opened now or several years of cellar aging. Gourmand and elegant.
Cheers!