Two days in Chambolle with Christophe Roumier.
I arrived on the Tuesday after the harvest had ended, which is the only honest time to ask a vigneron how the year went. Christophe was in the second cellar with Hugo, his nephew, racking the 2024 Bonnes-Mares from foudre into barrel. He looked tired and pleased, which is the right combination.
The 2024s came in clean, late, and at modest yields. Picking started on 18 September, ten days behind 2023, six behind 2022. Whole-cluster fermentation across the village wines and on the Combottes 1er Cru. He has gone back to plowing the Bonnes-Mares parcels by horse this season, which is a return to the practice of the early 2000s rather than a new fashion.
On the Combottes parcel
The Combottes is a Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru of 0.27 hectares planted in 1971. Christophe makes a point that this is not a wine he treats as 1er Cru in the cellar. He vinifies it in the same regime as the Chambolle village, in the same fifteen-hectolitre wooden vat, with the same elevage, because, in his words, the wine knows what it is and does not need to be told.
"The vineyard does the work in October. We do the work in March, and again in June, and again at harvest. The cellar is where you do not interfere."
I have transcribed this from a tape recording made over lunch, which is the only way to interview a Burgundian / standing in a cellar produces only short answers and the question of whether you would like more wine. He poured the 2018 Combottes from a half-bottle that had been open for two days, which is the test he runs on any wine he is unsure about.
Why horses
The decision to plow Bonnes-Mares by horse was made in 2018 and abandoned in 2021 due to the cost of finding a competent driver who could be present for the four passes a year. Christophe found one in 2024 / a man named Patrice from Nuits, who works five domaines on a rotating schedule. The horse compacts the soil less than the tractor, which matters on the Bajocian limestone slope above the wall.
I left on the Thursday with three bottles of the 2018 Bussiere in a wooden case and a written list of producers in Beaujolais I had not yet visited. The 2024s will be bottled in May 2026 and arrive in Florida the following spring.