Historical

The château itself is an 18th-century building above vaulted cellars that date back to the 15th century. It has been in the Cornut family since 1939, with Jean-Pierre Cornut in charge since the 1990s.

The buildings are kept in perfect condition, the classical blending well with various interpretations of modern art, some more erotic than others.

Viticulture & Vinification

The vineyards are ploughed and run by lutte raisonnée – pretty much organic except for treatments of mildew and oïdium.

The white grapes are fermented in tank at low temperature, using natural yeasts, then sent to barrel before the end of fermentation. Twenty per cent of new wood is used for the village wine, one-third for the premiers crus, except for the top three vineyards (two-thirds), while the small production of Bâtard-Montrachet will be entirely in new wood. Cornut uses various different tonneliers so as to avoid one dominant style, but sometimes matching tonneliers with specific terroirs. He is quite a fan of the noble, lees infused, type of reduction. These are finely crafted white wines, with impressive distinction between the various vineyards.

The red grapes are destalked and vinified in horizontal tanks with automatic punching down, after a long cool pre-fermentation maceration of 10 to 12 days, out of a total of 17 to 25 days. The wines are racked from barrel (one third new wood for the premiers crus) shortly after the following harvest and bottled in March of the following year.

Vineyards

Attention can be focussed on the ‘home block’ monopole of Clos du Château de la Maltroye. In white, it makes a softer, gentler version of Chassagne yet always impeccably balanced. Supple, gently nuanced wine combining weight and minerality without being extreme in either. The red, judging at least by the 2019 vintage, has slightly darker fruit and more muscle than the Clos St-Jean or indeed the very stylish Boudriotte.

The holdings reflect what Jean-Pierre Cornut chooses to put into bottle. He does not wish to distract attention from his Clos du Château de Maltroye nor the Morgeot Vigne Blanche, so his other grapes in Maltroie and Morgeot (Fairendes) are sold to a Chassagne-based colleague.

Attention can be focussed on the ‘home block’ monopole of Clos du Château de la Maltroye. It makes a softer, gentler version of Chassagne yet always impeccably balanced. Supple, gently nuanced wine combining weight and minerality without being extreme in either. The red sits stylistically between the Clos St-Jean and Boudriotte bottlings, with a middling colour and a leaner, tenser structure throughout in support of some classy red fruit. This is certainly a wine which is capable of ageing.

The domaine is fortunate to own several other top sites within Chassagne-Montrachet in cluding La Romanée and Grandes Ruchottes. The fruit in the latter is perhaps plumper and more immediate but the racy structure of la Romanée seems perfectly in tune with the domaine’s quite reductive style. Jean-Pierre feels that Vigne Blanche is the true expression of Morgeot, so he bottles it without blending in his grapes from Fairendes. It is backward in youth, tightly wound, yet with multiple  dimensions waiting to emerge with age.

The Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Dent de Chien holding currently dates back to 1937, the year after it was not included in the classification of Le Montrachet. It is not quite as powerful as the grand cru, but the class is unmistakeable. The château owns more than half of this vineyard.