Maison Albert Bichot, the prestigious Beaunoise house founded in 1831, owns over 100 hectares of vines spread over the entire Burgundy region (with some also in certain Beaujolais appellations, such as Moulin à Vent). This month, they have announced that all of the wines produced by their domains in the Côte d’Or and Mercurey will have organic certification on their labels.
Domaine du Clos Frantin and Château Gris in Nuits-Saint-Georges, Domaine du Pavillon in Pommard and Domaine Adélie in Mercurey, all housed by Maison Bichot, will – from the 2018 vintage onwards – show organic certification on their labels. The illustrious house has long-since worked with an environmentally-friendly approach: managed following integrated farming techniques since the late 1990s, respect for biodiversity, the health of the population and of its employees have progressively taken centre-stage in the domains’ philosophy and viticultural practices.
In 2012, the domains gained “organic agriculture” certification from the independent body ECOCERT, which meant that the wines were produced from organically-grown grapes. Since the introduction of an EU-regulated “organic wine” certification in 2012, however, the Bichot house has striven to achieve this new label, which comes with another, more demanding cahier des charges not only relating to viticulture but also vinification.
The house explained: “Several steps were needed before we could achieve this aim: in-depth work to get to know the domains different terroirs and parcels in even finer detail, adequate equipment so that the new needs in the vineyard could be met, training our employees in the new approach, and finding alternative solutions to adapt to certain parcels (crawler tractors, horse-drawn ploughing in certain vines, for instance at Château Gris…).”
Organic agriculture is, for Maison Bichot, a “way of seeking the finest expression of the terroirs and balance in the wines”. The team isn’t stopping there; their next step will be to fully convert the vines of Domaine Long-Depaquit (Chablis) and Domaine de Rochegrès (Moulin-à-Vent) to organics.
The rise of organic winemaking was highlighted last week in a study carried out by the British drinks market research body IWSR, which stated that sales of organic wines will almost double by 2022.
In addition to the house’s committed approach to environmentally-friendly viticulture, their respect for terroir, and their perfect mastery of vinifications make Albert Bichot one of the finest names in Burgundy; we therefore strongly suggest that you have a look at the wines from Maison Albert Bichot currently for sale on iDealwine!
