Bonneau du Martray

History

The connection between this hill and Emperor Charlemagne is one of the oldest and best-known stories in Burgundy. According to legend, Charlemagne noticed that the snow melted faster on the Corton hill than on the surrounding slopes, and ordered vineyards to be planted there. In 775, he gave the land to the Abbey of Soly for free, where Benedictine monks worked the land right up until the French Revolution, when the church’s estates were sold at auction.

In 1791, the vineyard was purchased at auction by a merchant named François Ray and was soon resold to Simon Verri. Véry’s daughter, Marie-Eugénie, married Charles Bonneau du Martray, and the Corton vineyards formed part of her dowry, ensuring that they have remained in the hands of the same family ever since. The estate was passed down from generation to generation until, in 1969, it came under the management of Jean Le le Bault de la Morinière, who was joined by his son Jean-Charles in 1994. Jean-Charles began the transition to organic farming in 1997, conducted the first biodynamic trials in 2004, and completed the full transition to biodynamic farming by 2011.

In 2017, E. Stanley Kroenke, an American businessman who also owns the Screaming Eagle winery in the Napa Valley, became the estate’s fifth owner. Day-to-day management is handled by Thibault Jacquet and a team that has been working at the estate for many years.

Vineyards

The estate owns 9.5 hectares in Corton-Charlemagne and 1.5 hectares in Corton, making it the largest single owner within the Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru. All the holdings are situated in a continuous strip, stretching from the top of the hill to the lower slopes and encompassing the Charlemagne climatic zones in both Pernand-Vergelesses and Aloxe-Corton.

Very recently, the estate also acquired a small plot in Bâtard-Montrachet, thereby adding a third wine to its range.

Terroir

The ‘Charlemagne’ plot faces west, which is a real rarity in the Côte de Beaune, where most Grand Cru vineyards face east. This means that the vines receive sunlight from mid-morning until sunset, rather than just the morning sun, a feature the estate describes as unique to Burgundy.

The soils form a mosaic of clays, silts, marls and various types of limestone, the composition of which varies from the top to the foot of the hill: the upper sections near the woodland lend the wine floral and citrus notes, the central part of the hill provides structure, whilst the lower, more mineral-rich sections add power to the wine.

Grapes

Chardonnay is planted on the upper slopes of Corton-Charlemagne, whilst Pinot Noir is planted on the lower, more clay-rich sections at the foot of the hill, which are used to produce the red wine ‘Corton’.

Winemaking

The grapes are harvested by hand, sorted first in the vineyard and then again at the winery. For the ‘Corton-Charlemagne’ wine, gentle crushing is carried out before pressing to ensure gradual extraction, after which the juice is settled and fermented in a mixture of new and old French oak barrels.

Each barrel is monitored individually until the first racking, after which the blending process begins. The wine is then aged on fine lees throughout the second winter, racked again, transferred to tanks for two months to allow homogenisation, and bottled during the waning moon.

Wines

‘Corton-Charlemagne’, the estate’s flagship wine requires time but rewards patience with superb concentration and mineral depth.

The ‘Corton’ red wine is produced in much smaller quantities from a harvest of Pinot Noir grapes grown on 1.5 hectares at the foot of the slope.

The recently added ‘Bâtard-Montrachet’, as the estate itself puts it, marks the beginning of a new chapter in the domaine’s history.