News
A recent announcement from the de Montille family in Volnay, on the Cote de Beaune, is causing quite a stir. They have purchased the Chateau de Puligny Montrachet and its vines. This means Burgundy has a new big player.
As is obvious to anyone who knows the Cote d’Or, with its small family estates comprised of tiny holdings in much divided vineyards, this is a bit of game-changer, for the family concerned, for consumers, and perhaps for other
Burgundians.
Of the 21 hectares acquired, 5 were immediately re-sold. Nuits St. Georges Clos des Grandes Vignes Monopole was sold to Louis Michel Liger-Belair in Vosne-Romanee, and Monthelie Blanc et Rouge, St Romain vineyards, described as
“less relevant”, were also disposed of. The domaine already had 20 ha., so this gives them a new total of just over 35 ha.. 20 ha. of this is Grand Cru and Premier Cru. “I would like to put the domaine de Montille in the top league in terms of land base and reputation” said Etienne de Montille at the end of July just after the transaction was finalized. The Chateau de Puligny estate brings Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru,25 ares, Meursault Premiers Crus Perrieres 45
ares and Porozots 65 ares, Puligny Premiers Crus Folatieres 50 ares, Chalumeaux 35 ares and Garenne 17 ares, Saint Aubin Premier Cru Remilly 1.6 ha., Meursault, Chassagne and Puligny Villages and 5 ha. of Bourgogne Blanc Clos du
Chateau, the vines around the house.
Etienne de Montille is nothing if not a strategist. It now emerges that he had a long-term plan to re-establish the family holding. In the nineteenth century the de Montilles had owned vineyards totaling about 35 ha. Only 2.5 ha. remained in 1947 when his father Hubert, a Dijon Lawyer, took it over. Successive generations had sold off their inheritance. By 1982 this had been enlarged to 6 ha., and gradually some more vineyards were acquired, including
their first white wine Puligny Montrachet Premier Cru Les Caillerets. A local lawyer is well placed to know when a family needs to sell vines!
It has often been said that the handover between generations in winemaking families is crucial. Of the three siblings, who would take over from Hubert when the time came? An observer might think this dominant and charismatic personality, (characteristics demonstrated in the film Mondovino, which made him a bit of a media star), didn’t make it easy for his son. Sometimes he appeared to favour his youngest daughter Alix’s winemaking skills. But Etienne was making a career in international banking, although he returned each harvest to help his father make the wine. From 1990 he took charge. He says now that
there were moments when he wondered if he was wasting his time trying to combine working in banking and at the domaine. In 2002 he grabbed an opportunity to return full time to Burgundy in his own right as Manager of the Chateau de Puligny Montrachet owned by a banking group, BPCE. Having a foot in two camps had paid off.
He set about turning round the Chateau whose reputation was at the time not very high. He also aimed to expand the family estate, and have the two, now both organically certified, working in synergy.
He was on the look-out to buy more vines, and in 2003 acquired 2.5 ha. Beaune Premiers Crus (Sizies & Perriere ) followed by 1 ha. Corton-Charlemagne in 2004.
In 2005 the domaine Thomas-Moillard came on the market. It was a chance to extend into the Cote de Nuits. Two families, the de Montilles and the Seysses of Domaine Dujac came together to share the purchase and then divide the
vineyards.“It was a very complex deal. I wouldn’t have been able to do
it without experience of banking and law - to get control without financing all of it by involving private individuals passionate about wine as minority shareholders”, says Etienne, who sees this as proof that balancing two careers
has its benefits. “ Whatever you do in your life is going to be
useful”.
The de Montilles were adding 6 ha. to their estate, including 90 ares Vosne Romanee Malconsorts Premier Cru, plus 50 ares of Malconsorts which lie nearest to La Tache now vinified separately under the label Cuvee Christiane in
memory of Hubert’s late wife, with 30 ares Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru, and 80 ares Corton Clos du Roi Grand Cru. In the meantime Etienne and his sister Alix had gone into partnership in creating a small negociant, Maison Deux Montille - a play on words that leads to confusion for some customers - to buy and vinify grapes. From making 250,000 bottles per annum, they will scale back now to 200,000 focusing on the best placed vineyards. With ownership of more vines they intend to re-organise things. “ The iconic vineyards will be under the Domaine de Montille label. The Chateau will specialize in white wines, (made by Alix), village wines and the Clos du Chateau,” Etienne told me, speaking from Denver USA, where he was about to do a presentation for his distributors.
It was when the financial crisis hit in 2008 that he started to make the first move towards buying the Chateau de Puligny.
“I talked to a few people at the bank who agreed we could think about it. It took three years of making proposals, revising them, and moving from talking to middle management to getting the approval of top management”.
He held his nerve and has now had the satisfaction of achieving his ambition.
Etienne de Montille comes from a small, sleepy village, but his first career has meant that he is at home in New York as he is in Sydney or Tokyo. He leads a frenetic international life marketing the wines, somehow adapting to a slower
pace in the vines back home, and shoehorning quality time with his young son into his packed schedule of tastings. He has played the long game to rebuild the family estate. What was the motivation? “ Wanting to return to our origins, to get back to being farmers.”
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