2022 Domaine Meix-Foulot Bourgogne Cote Chalonnaise Rouge

High on the hill above Mercurey, under the ruins of the Château de Montaigu that Henri IV had torn down, sits the Domaine du Meix-Foulot, where the de Launay family has farmed for more than two centuries. Paul de Launay was one of the founding figures of the Mercurey appellation and started bottling in earnest in the 1960s. Today, the estate is run by his daughter and eighth generation proprietor Agnès. The 20 hectares all sit inside Mercurey, about 90 percent Pinot Noir, and include the walled Clos du Château de Montaigu, a premier cru monopole directly below the castle ruins and the most elegant red in the house. The farming is practicing organic, with ploughing, natural compost used sparingly, sheep in the vines through the winter and rainwater collected for the cellar. The reds are raised long and sold late by Mercurey standards, the whites see about a fifth new oak, and the wines headed to the US mostly go unfiltered. Even the Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise gets the full treatment: two parcels of 24 to 45 year old vines, one on gravel in the Vaux valley and one on deep clay-limestone where Mercurey meets Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu, destemmed without crushing and raised a year in steel so the black cherry and raspberry stay out front. It’s one of the few domaines in the Côte Chalonnaise with both the size and the vineyards to show the whole range of what Mercurey can do.