Rodolphe Demougeot Beaune St Desiree 2020
Type: White
Country: France
Region: Burgundy, Cote de Beaune
Grape Variety: 100% Chardonnay
Climate: Oceanic climate with a semi-continental influence, frequent rains all year round, cold winters and hot summers
Terroir: Composed of relatively equal proportions of clay, sand, rock and silt on top of the limestone marl bedrock, Clos Saint-Désiré is grown high up on the slope of Beaune just above the famous red 1er Cru Le Clos des Mouches. Here the soil is surprisingly deep for this higher altitude site at nearing the apex of the Montagne Saint-Désiré
Winemaking: The Chardonnay grapes are whole cluster pressed and the juice settled overnight before racking to barrel for a naturally occurring fermentation. Aged in 90% old 228l and 350l oak barrels for one year, then racked into stainless steel tank for five to six months before bottling in the spring. It is not fined but it is lightly filtered. The first addition of sulfites is made before the bottling
Color: Beautiful gold
Nose: Floral aromas on a beautiful nose
Palate: Ample and voluminous, slightly oily with a well-integrated mineral breath
About the Winery:
The path to Rodolphe Demougeot’s current level of quality took a while after taking over the family Domaine in 1992. Since then, he’s amassed eight hectares of vines in the Côte de Beaune and year by year upped the ante on his attention to detail in the cellar and vineyard, raising his own personal bar and capturing the attention of his illustrious neighbours with more enviable vineyard stables in Meursault and Pommard.
Rodolphe explains that he “learned how to do perfect chemical farming from his family and had to deprogram his vineyards and himself, which took a lot of time”—a courageous and evolved sense of self and humility to admit. Another telling quote of his candid and honest character is that he needed to learn to be a good farmer first, and then learn to improve his performance in the cellar. If only everyone approached life with this kind of blatant and unflinching honesty about their own process!
Since the mid-2000s, synthetic treatments of herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers were systematically abandoned one step at a time. Then his interest in the inexplicable but observable energies of the cosmos and its influence on grapes and wine came to be central to his decision-making. The moon is his compass for the timing of processes during growing, farming, picking, racking, and bottling.
Today, Rodolphe’s vineyards are impressively farmed and have as much life as any organic or biodynamic vineyard we’ve set foot in. He’s renowned for the quality of his farming by top growers in his area, and with all the talent in his hometown of Meursault, that says something. He ploughs most of his vineyards by tractor, but in some of his top sites, like the Pommard, 1er Cru Les Charmots, he works with a horse. His cluster selection is made early in the season to concentrate the energy of the vines to fewer clusters through the fruiting season in the pursuit of quality over quantity. Everything is done by hand and under severe scrutiny within his humble Côte d’Or holdings.
