I am in this movement of degrowth which favors well-being over the accumulation of goods in general, ephemeral pleasures and outrageous expectations. Probably like many of you, for whom the simple wine drunk and appreciated has nothing to do with rumours, prizes, medals, reputations or other glorious labels to infuse this flavor in the present moment peculiarity of time that has become immobile by a simple effect of complicity.
An exception, even a tenacious obsession, however, remains, that of wanting to seize the 7 hectares 99 ares and 80 centiares of Montrachet to make it my Montrachet to me. On a planetary scale, no doubt the most selfish fantasy there is, but I assume. This grand cru from the Côte de Beaune is, without the slightest milliliter of hesitation, THE greatest dry white wine established on the vine in the world. The ultimate consecration of Chardonnay.
I also subscribe to the words of the good doctor M. J. Lavallé who already mentioned in 1855 that “the climate of Montrachet, whose wines so indisputably deserve the first rank among the white wines of the Côte-d’Or, and probably among all the white wines in the world, is located partly in the territory of Puligny and partly in that of Chassagne”. But there we are still below, in terms of explanations, the true genius of what the professor emeritus called, more specifically, the “Vrai-Montrachet”. Let’s try an explanation.
nobility obliges
The historical perspective already encourages the Burgundian journalist Jean-François Bazin to decline the Montrachet under the names of “Mont Rachaz” (1252), “Mont Raschat” (1286-1287), “Mon Rachat” (1380), “Mont Rachat” (1472) and “Montrachat” (1473). Be that as it may, and despite the plural toponymy of the place, this Mons Rachicensis quoted by the monk Claude Courtépée in the 18th centuryand century was, in sum and quite simply, an “uncultivated hill”. Why all the fuss, then? Probably because this “Mont-Chauve” located very exactly between 250 and 270 meters (like Musigny and Romanée-Conti) on the edge of the plateau where the hardest so-called “Bathonian” limestone outcrops does not has virtually no topsoil except for a thin layer of brown earth bequeathed by the Chevalier-Montrachet climate located just above it. Let’s continue the explanation.
Burgundy is a stripper that reveals the mystery of its charms only to the eyes, the palate and the intelligence of those whose patience and insight are of the order of the cardinal virtues. It’s well known. But this same Burgundy is also a source of frustration in not being able to grasp and circumscribe it completely as it reserves this kind of “nobility in secrecy”, whose purpose we can only appreciate if we do not unravel the plot. . Are we therefore doomed to never fully grasp what makes the greatness of Montrachet? Let’s persist with other explanations.
Annoyed, the agricultural engineer will also be short of arguments, because nothing connects the proportions of copper, nickel, lead, beryllium, chromium, magnesium, vanadium — lark! — contained in the wine to the uniqueness of the cru in question. “Only the gold is missing!” amused to say the author Jean-François Bazin, who suddenly admits that the geological aspect is also limited in its interpretation to unravel the mystery. Final explanation?
It comes to us once again from the good Doctor Lavallé. “In the Vrai-Montrachet itself, we distinguish the part exposed almost directly to the south-east, located in the territory of Puligny, and the part whose inclination to the south is very pronounced, and which belongs to the municipality of Chassagne. It is in the part sloping only to the south-east that the wine of Montrachet is produced in its exquisite finesse, in all its divine perfection. The explanation of my Montrachet to me? Having rubbed shoulders with a few bottles in the company of the great oenologist Nadine Gublin at the Domaine Jacques Prieur, I can only bow and quote Alexandre Dumas: “Montrachet should be savored on your knees, with your headgear uncovered”. Are the Montrachet routes impenetrable? This is already the beginning of an explanation!