Burgundy Domaine Lamy-Caillat
1.5 hectares doesn’t sound like much vineyard to play with, but in Burgundy and in the heart of Chassagne Montrachet, this micro-Domaine is turning heads with its tiny production from four key Chassagne climats; the Premiers Crus La Romanée, Les Caillerets, Les Champs Gains and the lieu-dit village wine Pot Bois, producing just over 7,000 bottles a year.
Lamy-Caillat is the project of husband and wife Florence Lamy and Sébastien Caillat, both come from burgundian winemaking families. Sébastien, a trained civil engineer, joined Florence in working for her family’s (much larger) Domaine Lamy-Pillot, however the pair had always had their own aspirations and ideas to produce their own wine.
Their chance came in 2008 when their octogenarian neighbours offered to rent them some vines. Not just any vines, but small slithers of Premier Cru vineyards in Chassagne Montrachet. With the first vintage in 2011, the defining feature of Domaine Lamy-Caillat is time. Time spent in the vineyard, time in barrel and time for the wine to settle, post malolactic fermentation, in tanks for another year before bottling. Sébastien refuses to heat his tiny, gelid, cellar and he does not inoculate the wines with fast acting bacteria; the wines therefore go into suspended animation over the winter, as used to happen in the past when the malolactic was known as the ‘spring fermentation’, only to start moving again as temperatures rise. The long ageing allows the wines to settle fully and all the various influences to integrate, ensuring that there is no need to filter the wines.
This care and attention results in wines that are wonderfully paradoxical, as Nicola Arcedekne-Butler, our Master of Wine and buyer has said; ‘how I love the counterpoint between plumpness and steeliness in these wines!’ Bill Nanson of Burgundy Report has described this winery as ‘cult’, purely because of the fact that ‘almost nobody gets to buy them.’ We consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to sell a miniscule allocation of the wine from this micro-Domaine, a year after the general en primeur sales, once the wines are in bottle. A warning, there aren’t many cases to go around!
Michelin Guide
"The resulting wines display superb textural refinement, multidimensional complexity and a rare sense of completeness. They combine purity, minerality and vibrant structure with notable depth and aging potential. Incremental improvements have been evident since the very first vintage, with a clear step forward from 2013 onward, the 2014s and 2015s remain particularly memorable, while even the challenging 2016 vintage produced some of the finest wines in the village." Lamy-Caillat was rewarded with 2 Michelin grapes. Attributed to the Michelin Guide
Click here for current availability or call us on 01353 721 999. For marketing queries, please contact Laura Taylor at laura@privatecellar.co.uk
