Biodynamic Burgundies - the Beautiful and Affordable Wines of Jean-Claude Rateau!

8/2/18 -

We're very proud to be working with Jean-Claude Rateau, who was the fourth vigneron in France to convert to biodynamics, beginning with two hectares in 1979. On our recent visit to his spacious cellars outside of Beaune, we were delighted with the purity and minerality of his wines which offer a stark and delicious contrast to the more extracted and manipulated modern wines of Burgundy. Even in the very warm, dry 2015 vintage, Jean-Claude made beautifully balanced and elegant wines - only one case of the lovely Beaune 1er Cru "Les Reversées" remains. 2016 was a difficult but classic vintage in Burgundy that produced small quantities of sometimes brilliant wines - suffering from tiny yields, Rateau produced only one Beaune village wine from his numerous plots and  tiny quantities of Beaune 1er Cru "Les Bressandes" and Gevrey-Chambertin. The "Bressandes" is a particularly great example of the elegance and structure of the vintage and exhibits the finesse and light touch in the cellar typical of Rateau. We tasted most of the 2017s before bottling and found the wines to have absolutely beautiful, round fruit while remaining in the light, fresh style preferred by Jean-Claude. (Coming soon will be his 2017 Pinot Blanc which is delicious!) The two Haute-Côtes-de-Beaunes are especially beautiful in this vintage and offer superb value for everyday enjoyment, while the Beaune "Beaux et Bons" offers gorgeous fruit for early drinking and will develop nicely over the next ten years.

We find a unique and subtle difference in Jean-Claude's Burgundies due to his 35 years of Biodynamic farming - Rateau has always believed that the soils must be alive to ensure the healthy transfer of nutrients to the vines, especially important being the mycorrhizal funghi which assimilate phosphorous and micro-nutrients and live in symbiosis with the vines' roots. He has developed a plowing regimen that encourages the life of the soil, uses natural composts and biodynamic preparations and has a varied population of wild plants in the vineyards that harbor beneficial insects. Jean-Claude's techniques in the cellar also enable the production of real wines of terroir. Fermentations are solely with wild-yeasts and stems are included in proportion depending on the vintage. There are manual cap-punchings, but no attempt to over-extract. Aging is uniquely in used barrels, three to ten years old, and minimal SO2 is used. M. Rateau does not seek or receive a great deal of media attention but his wines speak for themselves...