Domaine Patrick Miolane

At the foot of the Saint-Aubin slopes there is a hamlet called Gamay, and that is where the grape variety took its name. In 1395 the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Bold banned it and ordered it pulled out of the region; it was replanted in Beaujolais and stayed there. The Sur Gamay climat sits directly above that hamlet, and what grows in it today is Pinot Noir.

The house has existed since 1920. Patrick Miolane took charge in 1983, aged twenty, and his daughter Barbara joined in 2005: she is the seventh generation. They split the work without overlapping — her father runs the vineyard, Barbara the cellar and the selling.

There are nine hectares out of the village of Saint-Aubin, with vines in Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet as well, which yield fourteen cuvées. Seven bottles in ten are white.

They are among the last still bottling red Saint-Aubin 1er Cru. Sur Gamay is a climat of barely 0.72 hectares in total, facing south-south-west at around 370 metres, on clay-limestone soils. They farm in lutte raisonnée, with minimal treatments, strict pruning and hand harvesting; ageing runs some twelve months split between oak barrel and tank.