Maison Thiriet - Cotes De Nuits Villages Montagnes 2018

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Hautes-Côtes de Nuits is a subregion of the Burgundy wine region located to the west of the Côte de Nuits subregion. While Côte de Nuits consists of vineyards located on or close to the main Côte d'Or escarpment, Hautes-Côtes de Nuits covers the area on top of the escarpment, and the adjacent area of various valleys and slopes. Only one appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC), Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, covers the entire subregion; there are no specific AOCs named after villages in this subregion, and also no Premier Cru vineyards. This AOC may be used for red and rosé wines with Pinot noir as the main grape variety, as well as white wines with Chardonnay as the main grape variety, and was created in 1961.

The AOC covers a number of communes in the Côte-d'Or department: 16 communes situated above the escarpment (the actual Hautes Côtes), and the top parts of four communes that are mainly situated in Côte de Nuits. The border between Hautes-Côtes de Nuits and Hautes-Côtes de Beaune to the south passes through Magny-lès-Villers.

La Montagne is on the southern side of Corgoloin quite high on the slope - 280 m in altitude. The soil is sandy. The wine sees 50% whole cluster fermentation. This is estate fruit.

Maison Thiriet Description

Camille Thiriet is a star in the making. Sharp as a tack and hell bent on creating the finest wines by the modest means at her disposal, she has been producing characterful Burgundies from a 20m-squared garage behind her parents’ B&B, the statuesque Chateau Comblanchien in the Côte de Nuits, since 2016. With a few old vines of her own, Thiriet farms organically, working the land by hand and with her two horses, Obelix and Véga. Grapes are pumped over, crushed under foot and go into a ratchet press, with bottling, labeling and waxing, again, all done by hand. ‘Labour of love’ is no exaggeration here, and we are thrilled to be the sole UK distributor of these authentic, genuinely artisanal wines.

Thiriet works alongside her partner, Canadian-born cellar master Matt Chittick, whom she met while they were both working at the Domaine de Bellene, in Beaune. She subsequently gained experience at Domaine de la Côte in California and he is now Aubert de Villaine’s winemaker at Domaine de Villaine in the Côte Chalonnaise. In addition to their own, impeccable fruit, they source grapes from a network of trusted growers, including Savagnin from the town of Montigny-Lès-Arsures in the Jura. That may have raised some local’s eyebrows, but that is precisely what makes this dynamic young couple so intriguing.

The first wines came out of the 2016 vintage – before the garage even had electricity – and consisted of a Bourgogne Chardonnay and Côte de Nuits Villages, which remain Maison Camille Thiriet’s flagship wines (and, incidentally, higher in price than those from its latterly acquired, more prestigious appellations). There were initially just four barrels of the Bourgogne Chardonnay ‘Cuvée Confidentielle’, so named owing to the modest size of the obliging Puligny-Montrachet vineyard with 80-year-old vines, and three barrels of the Côte de Nuits Villages from the lieu-dit of ‘Aux Montagnes’, in Comblanchien, whose soils Thiriet regards as premier cru quality.