2016 Bourgogne Aligoté

Domaine de la Folie is a reborn estate. Whenever I mentioned my visit to this address just outside the town of Chagny, the reply was something along the lines of “They used to produce wonderful Rully...but they went downhill in the 1990s...what happened?” That cannot be denied. Nor can the fact that Clémence and Baptiste Dubrelle have taken it upon themselves to give Domaine de la Folie a new lease of life. The Domaine’s reputation stems from Clémence’s grandfather, who oversaw the wines up until the 1970s. Unfortunately quality slumped in the 1980s and a lack of investment saw this, once glorious winery, fall by the wayside with wines that could not hold a torch to past glories. Both Clémence and Baptiste pursued successful careers in public relations and engineering respectively, before making a life-changing decision and jacking that all in and face what must have been the challenging task of rejuvenating the Domaine. Alas, when I visited, Baptiste had recently fallen from a ladder in the winery and landed on the ball of his feet, an injury far more serious than this innocuous cause, necessitating several weeks in plaster that rendered him unable to descend down the steep steps for the barrel cellar for a frustrating period of time. Now on crutches, he had just started to be able to tend his barrels – a relief for both family and himself. The barrel cellar actually lies below the three-story maison that offers a panorama northwards all the way up to Nuits Saint-Georges. Funnily enough, Clémence’s 101-year old grandmother lives on the top floor, Clémence’s parents on the first floor and Clémence’s own family on the bottom.