Description

La Chanière is the vineyard on the north side of the road leading from Pommard to the Hautes-Côtes, just up the canyon from the premier cru Les Arvelets. It is a cold climate terroir. In a sunny vintage like 2019 this is a very good thing – this is a wine of density, and it is very tightly coiled this year too. This wine casts aside the claim that Pommard produces muscular, unrefined wines –  this is a sensual beauty with lovely concentration and balance! I was gifted a bottle of the 2005 by Claude a few years ago – it was glorious – resolved, complex and delicious – evidently still with many years left as it was brimming with fruit. Great Burgundy!

His wines are pure and sleek with vibrant fruit and great potential to age.  These wines are available in very limited quantities but are something you should definitely have in your cellar.In the vineyard ripeness is the watchword and the vines are maintained in order to maximise phenolic maturity every vintage whatever the conditions.

No chemical fertilisers are used and the harvest is hand picked each vintage, Claude says he is usually the last in each appellation to pick which shows on the ripe fruited nature of his wines. After harvest the bunches are sorted by hand and gently de-stemmed before vinification using natural yeasts.

The fermenting must is pumped over twice daily and once alcoholic fermentation is finished the wines are placed into oak barrels where they mature for between 10 and 15 months

Claude and Catherine’s aim is to produce “vins de plaisir” – wines that are approachable and bring pleasure to all who drink them. Ultimately, Claude says, “you don’t make wine with techniques, you make wine with grapes. If you harvest ripe, healthy grapes, the wines will always be exemplary.”

‘The quality of these wines is nothing short of phenomenal compared to the usual quality of the respective appellations’
Allen Meadows, Burghound;
I very much love the style of the wines from Catherine and Claude Maréchal, as they are very classically styled wines that are long on their soil signatures and short on cellar tricks or irrationally exuberant use of new oak. The family does not work with the most exalted of appellations, but I have yet to have an example from  Maréchal that was ever anything short of exemplary for its level and village. These are beautifully made wines that deserve a spot in any conscientiously stocked Burgundy cellar and are the absolute Promised Land for those who crave a bit of value in their Burgundy shopping.
John Gilman, A View from the Cellar
Claude Maréchal is a prime example of how the producer should be your first and most important focus in selecting wines. He has but a single premier cru, Les Lavières in Savigny-les-Beaune; other holdings are either Côte de Beaune village or regional appellations, yet he consistently produces wines of outstanding quality.
Claude Kolm, The Fine Wine Review