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Bret Brothers

Jean-Guillaume and Jean-Philippe Bret, whose first commercial vintage was 2000, own four prime hectares of vines on a clay-and-limestone slope in the east/southeast-facing climat of Pouilly-Vinzelles Les Quarts (Vinzelles is the easternmost village in the southern Mâconnais), as well as half a hectare of Pouilly-Fuissé Les Longeays barely 200 meters to the south, on the same slope, with an unobstructed view to the east. They also make a number of négociant bottlings under their Bret Brothers label—most of them from a single grower and a single plot—from another five hectares of vines. They now produce about 100,000 bottles a year, using a pneumatic press with an open cage, which Jean-Guillaume Bret told me allows them to expose the juice to oxygen early on, in order to make wines that are more stable in bottle. They add SO2 only after the 12-hour settling of the juice following the alcoholic fermentation.

Roughly two-thirds of their wines are fermented in barrels, although they avoid the use of new oak, and the other third is done in stainless steel. The Brets purchase used barrels from Domaine Leflaive for their whites and from Domaines Dujac and Thibault Liger-Belair for their reds.

The fermentations here can last up to six months, with total élevage averaging just under a year. (Roughly two-thirds of the 2014s were in bottle by the time of my October visit, while the Pouilly-Vinzelles Les Quarts was slated to be bottled in January.)

Jean-Guillaume told me that he and his brother prefer 2013 to 2014. “We got more complex wines in 2013 due to lower yields,” he said, and indeed this was one of the finest sets of 2013s I sampled on my October tour. In this warm section of the Mâconnais, the Bret brothers harvested very early (beginning on September 27), bringing in 90% of their fruit before the big rains, using 40 to 50 pickers rather than the usual 25 to move quickly. They do not use a sorting table for their Chardonnay, relying instead on a trie in the vines. Among the rules here are no added yeasts, no acidification and full malolactic fermentations.

From The Mâconnais on the Move (Dec 2015) by Stephen Tanzer

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2014 Mâcon Uchizy

Release Price: $32

Color: White

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2014 Mâcon Chardonnay

Release Price: $32

Color: White

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2014 Mâcon Uchizy

2014 Mâcon Chardonnay

2014 Viré-Clessé la Verchère

2014 Pouilly-Vinzelles Les Longeays

2014 Pouilly-Vinzelles Les Quarts

2014 Pouilly-Loché les Mûres

2014 Mâcon Vinzelles Le Clos de Grand-Père

2014 Pouilly Vinzelles

2013 Pouilly Vinzelles Les Longeays

2013 Pouilly Vinzelles Les Quarts

2013 Pouilly Vinzelles Les Quarts Cuvée Millerandé

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