Bret Brothers Mâcon-Cruzille 2017

Bret Brothers Mâcon-Cruzille comes from four-tenths of a hectare of fifty- to eighty-year-old Chardonnay in the hills of the northern Mâconnais.

Cruzille lies well north of the better-known Mâconnais villages, in country that has stayed largely rural, and the Bret holding sits mid-slope at about 300 metres, facing east. It is two plots: one on very white limestone, the other on deeper clay lower down. Bret Brothers is the small merchant house Jean-Philippe, Jean-Guillaume and Marc-Antoine Bret set up in 2001 alongside their family domaine, La Soufrandière at Vinzelles. Rather than buy finished juice they buy grapes on the vine from small old-vine parcels and pick them themselves, so the harvest date and the sorting are theirs. Cruzille is farmed organically and biodynamically and the rows are ploughed rather than sprayed. The fruit is hand picked and pressed in whole bunches, fermented on its own yeasts, and raised for eleven months entirely in 228-litre barrels, none of them new.

Worth keeping up to about five years. Serve at 10-12°C with grilled fish, roast chicken or a fresh goat's cheese.

*Every effort is made to ensure the current vintage is accurate; however, variations can occur. If you are after a specific vintage, please contact us prior to ordering.