If you know me, you know I love me some White Burgundy, and I know that many of you do too. I've got a great one for you all today!
Domaine de la Cras' Coteaux de Dijon Blanc is easily one of Burgundy's top hidden gems. While the winery is fairly new on the scene, proprietor Marc Soyard is one of the rising star winemakers of Burgundy, and his wines are earning a lot of much deserved hype.
Soyard obviously picked up a thing or two during his six years at Domaine Bizot, one of the finest estates in Vosne-Romanée. He was the vineyard manager, but he also worked closely with Jean-Yves Bizot in the cellars, learning how to make delicious wines without doing much to them.....we call that minimal intervention, aka natural wine.
Soyard's 2023 Coteaux de Dijon Blanc is dramatically delicious, and it's a wine that packs so much flavor, character, and dimension at such a fair price.
2023 Domaine de la Cras Bourgogne Coteaux de Dijon Blanc
A very unique, original, and delicious taste of White Burgundy!
While Pinot Noir is most commonly found planted around Dijon, Marc Soyard shows that Chardonnay can thrive there just as well. In the wonderful 2023 vintage, he has produced a rich yet lively and compelling white wine with a profile that is 100% Burgundy, with a slight nod to Marc's home region of Jura.
It's kind of hard to put into words how great this wine is, but I'll try. This is the rare white that really likes air -- DECANT IT! With about 30-45 minutes of air and agitation, the wine comes into balance, offering up a weighty, rich, and attractive profile of spiced apple, crushed ginger, orange zest, sea salt, and smoky, flinty minerality. DO NOT BE FREAKED by the wine's slightly hazy color, as it is unfined and unfiltered.
It hails from a 40-year-old, certified organic site named Gran Bessy. Grapes are carefully hand-harvested into small baskets, hand-sorted in the cellar, and fermented with native yeasts in older barrels. Aged for 10-12 months in these same barrels, it is finished with no added sulfites. Not only is the wine cool, the whole story about how it came to be is fascinating. If you are short on time, just skip down to the end and place your order. My true "wine geek" is on full display in the following paragraphs : )
In 2013, the city of Dijon purchased a 160-hectare agricultural property called Domaine de la Cras, located just outside the city limits. The former owner had already built a winery and planted 8 hectares of vineyards (5 ha red and 3 ha blanc) on land classified under the Bourgogne AOC, with the possibility to plant an additional 13 hectares. An open call for proposals was held to decide who would take over the winemaking, with the primary criteria being that the vineyards had to be farmed organically, the winner had to be a young winemaker with no existing family vineyards, and they must be interested in opening the domaine to the public for educational visits.
After Marc Soyard was chosen, he was given free rein to live on-site at the domaine, tend to the vineyards, and produce and sell his own wines, under the condition that he pay a yearly “rent” in bottles to the city of Dijon. Marc adapted the same hands-off, natural philosophy to Domaine de la Cras that he learned at Domaine Bizot. All vineyards are farmed organically, all vinification is done with natural yeasts and minimal addition of sulfur, and the elevage is traditionally executed in a combination of new and used barrels.
The official appellation at the domaine is Bourgogne AOC, but Domaine de la Cras is the sole producer permitted to use the designation Coteaux de Dijon. The cuvée Coteaux comes from the lower elevation vineyards, and as you'll see, the labels all bear a picture of an owl, the symbol of the city of Dijon.
If you read the entire write-up, good on you, you're a true lover of wine! If not, I totally understand. The key point is that if you adore White Burgundy, this is a must-try!
