DOMAINE CHICOTOT

With wild herbs and trees peppered throughout their vines and even an insect “hotel” nearby on Rue de Chaux, the family-owned Domaine Chicotot, one of the oldest estates in Nuits-Saint-Georges, is no stranger to biodynamic practices. Originally established in 1678, the domaine is helmed by the mother-and-son vigneron team Pascale and Clément Chicotot. They use only organic-certified methods on their 7 hectares of vines and believe in minimal intervention in the cellar.

Prior to a life of winemaking, Alsatian-born Pascale was a banker by trade. She met Georges Chicotot at the estate during a trip with her clients in the early 1990s. Georges and Pascale eventually married and began making wine together in 1996. Georges retired in 2008, passing on the domaine’s twelve generations of wine-making to wife and son.

Their wines include several cuvées of Nuits-St-Georges Villages (Aux Allots, Les Charmottes, Vieilles Vignes) as well as Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru (Les Rues de Chaux, Les Pruliers, and Les Vaucrains among others). Many of their Villages parcels east of the town of Nuits-St-Georges have deep, chalky soils, giving way to clay and quartz as they stretch farther east. Their 1er Cru parcels, situated mainly west of town, are characterized by red clay, loam and limestone.

All wines are aged at least two years in the cellar and six months in bottle before release. But despite the estate’s deeply-rooted heritage, the Chicotots are adapting to the region’s warmer climate, creating accessible and approachable wines that are lovely in the short and medium terms – no long years of cellaring required.