Mâcon-Verzé, Le Chemin Blanc, Nicolas Maillet - 2021

Son and grandson of a winegrower, Nicolas Maillet took over the family estate in 1999, after obtaining a diploma in agricultural engineering, followed by a national diploma in oenology in Montpellier. In the wake of this, he undertook internships at various estates around the world. It was on his return that he departed from the traditional path of local viticulture. With his father, he first "took" his wines out of the cooperative in order to resume the activity in private cellars, as it was practiced before 1928. With a few hectares at the beginning, he gradually increased the size of the estate to reach about seven hectares in 2013. Then, he took the opposite direction of conventional methods, orienting the estate towards organic farming with the Ecocert label since the 2008 vintage. Finally, he was inspired by the vinification methods of the famous Mâcon winemaker Jean Thevenet to produce wines that are vinified for a long period of time in reduction and without ageing in wood.At the estate, the vines are planted in the Mâcon arcure, essentially with Chardonnay. The vineyard is planted at a density of 11,000 vines per hectare. Treatments are therefore carried out in accordance with organic farming methods, using sulphur and copper. As some of the conventionally farmed plots are very close to Nicolas Maillet's, he sometimes treats the first five rows of his neighbour's...