Bernard Moreau Vigneron Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2020

The winery’s roots go back to 1809 when Auguste Moreau built a cellar across from the Champs Gain vineyard and farmed his few hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot along the golden slope. The 1930s saw an expansion of the family’s vineyards under the guidance of Marcel Moreau. Roughly 80% of the domaine’s current vineyard holdings were acquired by Marcel. At age 14, Bernard Moreau took over the vineyards and cellar in the early 1960’s. In 1977 the reputation of this great estate was fully established under the leadership of Bernard and Françoise Moreau and the winery was named Domaine Bernard Moreau.

Bernard Moreau works nearly 7 hectares of vines on his own.  These grow on the slopes surrounding Mancey, Vers and Jugy.  His biggest production is that of Mâcon-Mancey and red Bourgogne. The great diversity of the terroirs brings a lovely complexity to the domaine’s wines.

The grapes are crushed on arrival at the winery. Fermentation creates a rise in temperature, which helps the maceration process and leads to the diffusion of the colour throughout the fermenting must.  It lasts about 8-10 days, during which time pumping-over operations are carried out and the temperature is constantly monitored. The delicacy and fruit of the Pinot Noir, grown in this type of soil, call for careful fermentation without too much “punching down”.  The juice is then drawn off and the pulp pressed. The free run and press juices are blended together in certain proportions. A proportion of the wine is then stored in vat, about 10% of the wine goes into new barrels, and another proportion is housed in barrels already used for 1 to 5 vintages, all the 228 litre traditional Burgundy barrel size.