Translation missing: en.Pierre Yves Colin Morey + Caroline Morey + Maison Lapalus Tasting this Saturday 3-6PM: Pierre Yves Colin Morey + Caroline Morey + Maison Lapalus Tasting this Saturday 3-6PM
Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey
Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey, or PYCM as everyone calls them at this point, are one of the most exciting and globally sought after new wave estates in modern Burgundy and squarely at the front of the conversation around the next generation of the Côte de Beaune. The domaine was set up in 2001 when Pierre-Yves, son of Marc Colin in Saint-Aubin, left the family estate where he had already built a serious reputation for whites, and joined forces with his wife Caroline Morey, daughter of Jean-Marc Morey of Chassagne. They started with about two hectares of family vines and have steadily built out to 13 hectares today across Saint-Aubin, Chassagne-Montrachet, Santenay, Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault, with additional Grand Cru parcels at Corton-Charlemagne and Bâtard-Montrachet coming through family.
The vineyards are farmed on organic principles (sustainable rather than certified, with the steepest plots either worked by hand or kept grassed) and picking is timed for that fine balance between freshness and ripeness the wines have become known for. The whites are whole bunch pressed, fermented on native yeasts and aged on lees in mostly 350L barrels with no battonage and no filtration, in a very cool cellar that helps keep the tension in the wines. The reds get a roughly 30% whole bunch ferment with gentle pumping over for the same reason. The signature touch, by now well known, is in the closure: every bottle goes out under an extra long, extra wide untreated cork from a single tiny supplier, with the head dipped in soft wax as a further line of defence against premature oxidation. These are wines clearly built to age, and made by someone intent on letting them.
We've just landed the new 2023 release and the lineup goes deep this year. Starting at village level, the '23 'Monthélie' comes off new domaine plots in Les Plantes and Les Crays and is one of the better value entries into the range. From Saint-Aubin, the '23 'Saint-Aubin Cuvée Marguerite 1er Cru' is a blend of three Premier Crus (Combes, Perrières and Les Creots) named for Pierre-Yves' maternal grandmother, who passed around the time of the 2016 frost when the cuvée was first made, while the '23 'Saint-Aubin Les Champlots 1er Cru' comes off a parcel facing south west just above La Chatenière, planted in 1994. In Chassagne, the '23 'Chassagne-Montrachet Vieilles Vignes' draws from four very old parcels on the Puligny side of the village, the '23 'Chassagne-Montrachet Chenevottes 1er Cru' comes off vines planted in 1960 sitting on barely 15 centimetres of soil over rock not far from Le Montrachet, and the '23 'Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 1er Cru' is drawn from two parcels in Les Fairendes and Abbaye de Morgeot on the deeper, clay heavy soils further down the slope. Heading into Meursault, the '23 'Meursault' is the village offering while the '23 'Meursault Charmes 1er Cru' is sourced from 80 year old vines on the higher side of the climat, closer to Perrières. Finally we have the two Grand Crus, the '23 'Corton-Charlemagne', long one of the references at this domaine, and the '23 'Bâtard-Montrachet' from a tiny 0.07 hectare parcel of vines over 85 years old just into the Chassagne side. Quantities on the top wines are tiny as ever, so get your hands on these while you can!
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Caroline Morey
Caroline Morey comes from a long line of vignerons in the Côte de Beaune (her father Jean-Marc Morey of Chassagne, her husband Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey) and set up her own estate in 2014 with her share of the family parcels. She works out of the same brand new cellar in Chassagne that she shares with Pierre-Yves, and her starting holdings were close to half red and half white, which means that unlike many of her neighbours she has been thoroughly comfortable across both colours from her very first vintage. The estate has grown to around seven hectares today, roughly 35% Pinot Noir and 65% Chardonnay, with parcels across Santenay, Chassagne, Beaune and a small slice of Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.
The cellar approach mirrors PYCM closely: hand harvest, whole bunch pressing and native yeast ferments for the whites, 350L barrels with no more than 30% new oak and no battonage, and an absolute minimum of intervention. For the reds she works site by site with no fixed recipe, leaning on a touch of whole bunches when the fruit calls for it (never more than 50%) and gentle pumping over. What comes out are pristine, fine boned whites with real layering, and reds that quietly make the case that Chassagne reds in particular have been underrated for decades and deserve a far better seat at the table.
On the whites, the '23 'Santenay Les Cornières' is a beautifully poised village white off limestone soils just below Santenay Le Haut, and the '23 'Chassagne-Montrachet Chambrées' (also available in magnum) blends three parcels of vines well over forty years old for a pure, crystalline Chassagne. Stepping up, the '23 'Beaune Grèves 1er Cru' comes off Chardonnay vines in the middle of the slope and is the most structured of the white releases, built for the cellar. On the red side, alongside her 'Santenay' and a Chassagne-Montrachet in magnum, we have both the '22 'Beaune Grèves' and the latest '23 'Beaune Grèves', which is a rare chance to taste the same site across two vintages from one of the more quietly impressive young estates in Burgundy. As always very limited!
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Maison Lapalus Tasting
Saturday 30th
3pm-6pm
Join us this Saturday as we taste through the wines of Maison Lapalus and one of the most moving stories to come out of the Australian wine community in years.
Maison Lapalus is the project of Gilles Lapalus, based at Harcourt in Central Victoria, a range of fine wines crafted with time and slowly carved from carefully nurtured parcels of vines right across the state. Everything is hand-picked and made with as little intervention as possible, the idea being that each wine reflects its environment and celebrates the natural character of its variety.
On the 9th of January this year, early in what the Chinese calendar marks as the year of the fire horse, fire swept through Harcourt and the coolstore holding everything Maison Lapalus had was completely destroyed. Gilles lost the lot, every wine and every bit of work along with a number of irreplaceable bottles from his own cellar. A month on, the clean-up has turned up little more than a few barrel racks, a blackened tank and a twisted bench, with a handful of barrels charred on the outside still somehow holding a little liquid.
What came next is the part worth dwelling on. The support that flowed back the other way, from family, friends, locals and the wider industry, was beyond anything Gilles could have imagined, and a whole group of winegrower friends simply donated finished wine so he would have something to bottle and sell again. From around twenty samples he crafted four cuvées and built a range he calls Les Vin des Amis, the wine of his friends. The list of donors reads like a who's who of Australian wine: Michael at Bindi, Julian at Castagna, Erinn at Ngeringa, Tobias at Tellurian, Mark at Fighting Gully Road and Ian at Whistling Eagle among many others, with Rob at Hanging Rock and Pat at Little Reddie both opening up their wineries so the wines could actually be made.
The four Renaissance wines run from a white through a rosé to a light red and a more savoury red, each one a multi-vintage, multi-region blend drawn from all that generosity.
Alongside the Renaissance range, we'll be pouring three of Gilles' own bottles that came out of the cellar before the fire and which deserve a proper look in their own right. The Maison Lapalus Roussanne 2020 and the Maison Lapalus 'Apianum' Fiano 2022 are both from his classic range, single variety bottlings sourced from parcels across Victoria, hand picked and given the time and minimal intervention cellar work the range is built around. The Bertrand Bespoke Grenache 2023 is from another label Gilles also makes, again working in the same hands off spirit. With the coolstore gone these are bottles that simply can't be replaced once the last cases sell through, so Saturday is one of the few genuine chances left to taste this side of his work.
These are the wines that we'll be pouring on the day:
Maison Lapalus Roussanne 2020
Maison Lapalus 'Apianum' Fiano 2022
Les Vin des Amis Renaissance White MV
Les Vin des Amis Renaissance Rosé MV
Les Vin des Amis Renaissance Light Red MV
Les Vin des Amis Renaissance Red 2025
Bertrand Bespoke Grenache 2023
Come down to the store on Saturday, taste through them with us and raise a glass to Gilles, the work that came before the fire and the extraordinary community of growers who got behind him. See you there!