2023 | Domaine Matrot

I have known this domain since my time working at the venerable Seagram Château & Estates wine company in New York in the 1980s and 1990s. Thierry Matrot was a pensive, ambitious Burgundian with a long family history (his grandfather came to Meursault after World War I). Now retired, Thierry and his wife Pascale have passed the company on to their two girls, Adele and Elsa who have been working at the domain since 2010 and 2011 respectively and who are polyvalent, sharing the work load of running a venerable domain although, when pushed, Adèle explains that she runs the commercial side of the business while Elsa deals with the personnel and work responsibilities. Since 2016, they grow and make the wines together on the large, 24-hectare estate.

Like many producers of white Burgundies, Matrot also fell into the premox trap in the 1980s of subjecting the musts to too much oxygen during winemaking with the goal of making the wines richer and fuller as the fashion of that time dictated. The error of this technique which showed up several years after the wines were bottled plus the challenges of climate change have led the Matrots to alter their wine philosophy quite seriously. Today the wines are harvested in cagettes, pigeage has been abandoned for gentle pumping over, the musts are protected against oxygen, only old oak barrels are used for aging the white wines and even the corks have been changed to Diam. Farmed organically since 2000, the Matrot white wines have a fresh and precise style with good refinement and length. The red wines, which are fully destemmed, have fresh structure and can age well. Our selection