Producers: Sylvie Esmonin

Sylvie Esmonin produces her own wines on her 7-hectare vineyard and sets the standard with extremely elegant yet taste-intensive wines. Fortunately, this 7-ha top domain was relatively unknown for a long time, because M. Esmonin sold his wine exclusively in the barrel to trading houses - u. a. Leroy. Only when his daughter Sylvie began to work on the Domaine after completion of her studies (agricultural engineer and graduate in 1989) and short practical experience in 1989, the wines were completely marketed under their own name. Since then Sylvie Esmonin is responsible for the work in the sparkling clean cellar. She vinifies wines respecting traditional methods of development, combining wines of great taste, purity and unbelievable finesse. Since summer 2000 she leads the domain under her own name. In recent years, she has paid special attention to the quality of the wooden barrels used. She chooses barrels of possibly seasoned wood woth a uniform plank thickness. She buys them from several tonneliers, also from her husband D. Laurent. Because of the excellent results achieved in recent years, she has increased the share of new wood for the Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes to almost 90% and for the Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St. Jacques to 100%. Furthermore, by tasting some excellent bottles, she has come to the conclusion that by fermenting the grapes with the stems, as was customary in the past, and as is still the case today, for example at the Domaine Romanée-Conti, the wine can be given an extra dimension. A prerequisite is, of course, a high degree of ripeness of the grapes and the stems, which presupposes a later harvest than usual. For the first time in 2003 she implemented her philosophy and the first results prove her right. The wines have gained thanks to this maturation in density and complexity. They have an impressive finesse and the wood is perfectly integrated in the wines, never dominant. They are qualitatively superior to their respective class. The Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes can be compared with good Premier Crus, the Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St. Jacques with the elite of the Grand Crus from Gevrey-Chambertin.