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Wines Éric's
Mâcon Bussières Très Vieilles Vignes (TVV) is a beautiful
pale yellow with a nose of concentrated minerals, quartz and wet stone.
Well balanced though powerfully concentrated, this crisp wine perfectly
accompanies any dish based on a butter or cream sauce such as Suprêmes
de Volaille Farcies aux Morilles (chicken with Morels). With its crisp
character, it can also pair well with moderately spicy Thai or Indian
food.
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Vineyards
The Mâcon Bussières TVV vineyard is located directly
below the village of Bussières on a gentle, southern facing slope
that leads down to a the small stream la petite Crosne. The vineyard is
directly north of the famous Roche de Vergisson, a rocky crag that marks
the northern end of the Pouilly Fuissé. The chardonnay vines are
spaced about 1 meter apart and trained in the Cordon de Royat method.
The vines are lovingly managed in a very natural manner by a husband and
wife team. Manure is the only fertilizer used and the bunches are "millerand"
which means the vines produce tiny yields of very small berries.
Terroir The village
of Bussières is located in the southern Mâconnais region
roughly 15 km west of Mâcon. The region marks the end of the limestone
soil typical of Burgundy. The bedrock is composed of Jurassic strata in
the north, which transitions to Hercynian bedrock in the south. The rocky
crags of Vergisson and the Solutré are inspiring examples of very
erosion resistant Jurassic strata. The climate is temperate with the exception
of the very cold February and a typical hot July and August. There is
an average annual rainfall of 800mm.
The Mâconnais Like all of Burgundy, wine has
long been an integral and shaping force in the history of the Mâconnais.
The first written mention of Mâconnais wines was by the Roman poet
Ausonius (310 - 390 A.D.) who resided in Bordeaux but wrote about wine
regions as far away as Germany. Hundreds of years later, in 910, the Abbey
of Cluney, which Pope Urban II called the light of the world, was founded
and began producing wine. Cluney, over the next 400 years, became the
largest and most powerful Abbey in Europe and produced large amounts of
wine from the Mâconnais, as well as Gevrey-Chambertin further north
in Burgundy.
While the wines of the monks at Cluney enjoyed local fame it was not
until the 17th century that wines form the Mâconnais gained wider
recognition when an industrious local grower, Claude Brosee, decided to
take his wine to the king. He loaded two casks onto a cart and traveled
for 33 days, braving poor roads and highwaymen until he arrived at the
court of Versailles where he presented his wine to King Louis XIV. King
Louis was so impressed he declared the Mâconnais wine a better quality
than the Loire wines he had been drinking! Throughout the 1600's the wines
were regularly transported to Paris and after the French Revolution wines
were shipped as far away as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Today,
wines from the Mâconnais receive worldwide recognition.
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