Jean Manciat Macon-Charnay 2016

100% Chardonnay from Manciat's oldest vines, which average 30 years and are planted on a slope of clay limestone soils. Jean considers this to be his finest plot. The hand harvested fruit is whole cluster pressed, naturally fermented like all of Manciat's wines, and aged on its fine lees in stainless steel tanks no oak at all here to feature the fresh, floral, flinty nature of the fruit from this vineyard.

Manciat prunes his Chardonnay vines in the Cote d'Or fashion (taille Guyot), leaving a shorter cane that is less productive. The Maconnais style of pruning is to bend a long cane into an arc, but Manciat finds the quality much higher with a shorter cane. Manciat is also experimenting with various agricultural techniques, such as sowing particular varieties of grass between rows, to eliminate the use of herbicides and alleviate soil erosion. He uses a type of old rootstock which he finds ideally suited to the chalky soil of the Maconnais and replants with a mix of clones and grafts taken from old vines in the Pouilly Fuiss area.