The latest release shows the ambition of the Carabello-Baum family who bought Clos Marey-Monge in Pommard in 2014.
The Carabello-Baum family purchased the historic property in 2014. Its chief asset is the Clos de Marey-Monge, a 20-hectare enclosed monopole plot. The conversion to organic farming had already begun in 2007, under existing cellar master Emmanuel Sala. Michael Baum, CEO and owner of the estate, wants to take this even further: “The organic certification is the first milestone in our journey towards biodynamic certification,” he said.
The conversion to biodynamic certification is already underway. In order to adapt farming and inform blending decisions, each of the seven plots that make up the Clos were analysed and studied by the soil guru couple Lydia and Claude Bourguignon. Until 2017 just two wines were made from the Clos: a first and a second wine, very much in a Bordelais fashion. As of 2018, however, the plots were vinified separately, and the wines show distinct differences in personality that help to explain the layered complexity of the Clos de Marey-Monge Monopole blend.
The 2019 vintage with its tiny yields – just 21hl/ha on average in the Clos – is particularly illustrative of these striking differences. To debut the first organic vintage, two of the separate plot wines were tasted, followed by the Clos Marey-Monge wine. Since all the wines were made with 20% of whole bunches and had the same ageing regimen, i.e. fermentation in stainless steel followed by 18 months ageing in French oak of which 20-25% was new, the wines are indeed illustrative of what different soils, vine ages and genetic materials can express.
The plots chosen were Nicolas-Joseph and Grands Esprits. Nicolas-Joseph is a 3-hectare plot of red clay suffused with flat limestone rocks, half of it was planted in 1943, half in 2001. This shows generous fruit. Grands Esprits is a 4.81-hectare-plot with much stonier, showing the more sinewy and perhaps more textbook side of Pommard with firm tannins and fine structure. The Monopole blend – of six rather than seven plots – since the Emilie plot has been replanted and vines are still too young to make the blend – shows a wine that is the sum of all of its parts, shimmering with perfume and expressing real elegance.
Château de Pommard Clos Marey-Monge Nicolas-Joseph 2019
