- Côte de Beaune, Burgundy, France
Formerly known as Domaine Latour-Labille, the estate dates back to 1792 and is currently run by Vincent Latour with his wife Cécile. The domaine now has 9ha of vines, on the lookout for more, and buys in grapes from another 3 to 4 ha. The winery in the middle of town has been extensively renovated. Vincent Latour is looking for sucrosity in his whites while retaining sufficient tension and by and large he succeeds. The grapes are crushed before pressing, settled to remove the major solids, then vinified without lees stirring. The tendency is also to go for larger sizes of barrel. - Jasper Morris, InsideBurgundy.com
Although the Latour-Labille family has been making wine since 1792, Vincent Latour began turning heads in Burgundy after the release of his 2006 vintage when he was nominated as winemaker of the year by the well-respected local magazine, Bourgogne Aujourd’hui. He has also been recognized several times as the best new/young winemaker in the Côte de Beaune and in the Côte de Nuits as the result of an annual blind tasting hosted by local vignerons.
Vincent is hand-crafting exceptional Meursault from eight hectares of vines. His father used to sell off their grapes, but when Vincent took over from his father in 1998, he decided to bottle all of their production, roughly 4,000 cases. Vincent has continually been making improvements over the years, including using whole cluster fermentation, integrating more and more demi-muids and foudres into the cellar, and a longer élévage. Using a mix of old and new demi-muids, barrels, and foudres gives Vincent better control of the oak influence allowing the purity of each site to shine. Work in the vineyard follows lutte raisonée methods, eschewing herbicides and pesticides, but allowing treatments for mildew as necessary. Native yeasts start fermentation. After pressing, must goes into 600L barrels or foudres for fermentation and aging. The style is classic, emphasizing the brilliant fruit and mineral laden terroir.