Camille Giroud Mercurey Rouge 2018

Camille Giroud is a historic name in Burgundy and for their first 100 years of business, the business model was pretty simple. Curate relationships with the very best growers in the region – buy their wine in bulk or in some cases grapes and then age the wines until they were perfect, often times for decades. The family-run business became experts at cellaring techniques and infamous for their ability to taste the true potential of wines decades before they’d be ready to drink.

They would then sell the wines – already aged – at massive profits to an extremely exclusive clientele. Their auctions are legendary and many bottles can still be found today – floating around in private collections with four figure price tags.

But Ann had a larger vision and wanted even deeper relationships with their growers and increased control over the finished product. She also began to release some of the wines in more traditional channels and in a much more timely manner.

Like at Colgin, she amped up the winemaking team as well. Robert Parker summarized, “they sought a young, talented winemaker to take the negociant by the scruff of the neck and kick-start a renaissance. That is exactly what happened when David Croix was hired as regisseur in 2005. Most of the fruit is contracted, though like Albert Bichot across the road, ….David manages the vineyards and has summarized his policy: one contracted grower per cru in order to articulate a sense of place.”

I’m super excited to be working with these wines once again and have chosen one of my favorites from the portfolio – especially when one considers the bang for the buck. From Mercurey in the north Cote Chalonnaise, comes a stunner of a Pinot.