Domaine des Fauvettes

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Domaine des Fauvettes is the tiny project of Maryse Chatelin, based in Uchizy in the northern Mâconnais. Maryse spent years working alongside her husband, Alexandre Jouveaux, before starting her own domaine and planting a small parcel of Pinot Noir in 2012. Pinot is hardly the obvious choice in this part of Burgundy, where Chardonnay rules, which is part of what makes the project interesting.

The vineyard sits in a secluded spot surrounded by woodland, on pure limestone at around 300 meters in elevation, among the highest sites in the area. The east facing exposure and surrounding biodiversity give Maryse a cooler, slower ripening site that has become increasingly valuable in the warmer vintages. She also tends a tiny parcel of roughly 60 year old Chardonnay in Viré Clessé, giving the domaine a foothold in both sides of the local vineyard tradition.

Maryse works with very little intervention in the cellar. The grapes are handled more by infusion than extraction, then raised in old foudres before being bottled by gravity, without fining or filtration and with no additions. The result is Pinot Noir that is unusually light on its feet for the Mâconnais, but still has the structure and mineral character of its limestone site. This is a very small domaine, but Maryse has carved out a style that is distinctly her own.