No stranger to the newsletter and shelves at Chambers Street Wines is Sylvie Esmonin. Her eponymous estate was previously known as Domaine Michel Esmonin et Fille, and the team here has been offering her wines up for over a decade. This humble estate has 7.8 hectares of vines, half of which are owned. The other half consist of long term rentals. Even 27 years after taking over her father's Domaine, Sylvie's is still one of very few estates in Gevrey-Chambertin to be run by a woman! What makes Sylvie’s wines so special are the high average of vine age, the youngest being 45 years old! Most vines were planted by Sylvie’s grandfather with the remainder by her father. Although they have never been certified organic, Sylvie and her father stopped the use of chemicals in the vineyards in 1990. She says, “Because I drink my own wine! And I’d been involved in bio-chemistry for a long time, which naturally made me weary of chemical products. I don’t want to poison myself, I want to drink something pure. And I also felt that I couldn’t play sorcerer’s apprentice with the vines.” 

Depending on the vintage and vineyard site, a percentage of whole cluster is determined. This was the only large change that Sylvie made from her father’s way of winemaking. She believes that her wines gain more complexity, and floral aromas. All wines ferment in open wood vats before being racked to barrels to finish fermentation and age. Each cuvee gets a slightly different percentage of new oak, starting with 10% in the Bourgogne Rouge Cuvee Sylvie and working up to 80% in her 1er cru Clos-Saint-Jacques. 

Of Esmonin’s 7.8 hectares, 1.7 are in the 1er cru vineyard of Clos-Saint-Jacques, arguably one of, if not the best Premier Crus in all of the Cote d’Or, with some believing it should be considered a Grand Cru. Jancis Robinson says: “Clos Saint Jacques is always regarded as a Grand Cru in all but name.” Sylvie is the second largest owner of the vineyard that is just a mere 6.7 hectares with vines running from the top of the vineyard down to the bottom, divided up amongst just 5 owners. You will see this prestigious vineyard on the labels of Armand Rousseau, Bruno Clair, Louis Jadot, and Domaine Fourrier, yet I will make the argument that Sylvie’s is the most affordable by a landslide.