Denis Mortet

Domaine Denis Mortet is in Gevrey-Chambertin, on the rue de Lavaux. Charles Mortet started the family estate in 1956 with a single hectare; his son Denis set up under his own name in 1992 with four and a half hectares and enlarged it steadily until his death in 2006. It has been run since by his son Arnaud, with his mother Laurence and, from 2013, his sister Clémence, and now runs to some sixteen hectares in about a hundred separate parcels, stretching from Daix above Dijon down to Vougeot.

Five grands crus head the range: Chambertin, bought in 1999; Clos de Vougeot; Mazis-Chambertin and Bonnes-Mares, both acquired in 2014, the latter a parcel of just over a third of a hectare on the Chambolle-Musigny side of the climat; and Échezeaux. Below them come the Gevrey premiers crus Lavaux Saint-Jacques, at the mouth of the Combe de Lavaux, Les Champeaux, higher up at the northern edge of the commune towards Brochon, and Les Champonnets on the north flank of the combe. There is also a Chambolle-Musigny premier cru, Aux Beaux Bruns. The village wines run from Gevrey-Chambertin Mes Cinq Terroirs, a blend of five lieux-dits, north into Fixin and Marsannay Les Longeroies, and end with the Bourgogne Cuvée de Noble Souche, from high-altitude plots on the Dijon plateau.

The vines are worked without weedkillers or chemical fertilisers, ploughed sparingly to protect the structure of the soils, with natural ground cover encouraged, hand pruning, and treatment doses matched to the share of the canopy under threat. Denis made dark, deeply extracted wines; Arnaud has moved towards infusion: three passes of sorting, a destemmer built for the cellar in 2008 that leaves the berries whole, pumping over in place of punching down, much less sulphur, and much less new oak. The wines are dense and precise, with dark cherry and a savoury, stony edge, the tannin held under the fruit. Arcana Cabinet lists seven wines: Bonnes-Mares, the Gevrey-Chambertin premiers crus Lavaux Saint-Jacques and Les Champeaux, the Chambolle-Musigny premier cru Aux Beaux Bruns, Fixin Vieilles Vignes, Marsannay Les Longeroies and the Bourgogne Cuvée de Noble Souche. The range also includes the grands crus Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, Mazis-Chambertin and Échezeaux, and the Gevrey-Chambertin premier cru Les Champonnets.