BOURGOGNE VÉZELAY

Regional naming of the vineyard of Vézelien, in the Yonne. The name of VÉZELAY can be added to that of BURGUNDY only for white wines produced inside the area bounded by the naming. Municipalities of production: Vézelay, Asquins, Holy Father and Tharoiseau.
On the label, the mention VÉZELAY must be registered at once after BURGUNDY in the same size of characters. The big musician Mstislav Rostropovitch, who registered here sound "Complete of the Suites for cello only" of Jean-Sébastien Bach, compares gladly Burgundy Vézelay with the architecture so musical of Madeleine: the moose and the harmony get married there. This white wine has of the amount. A clear golden wine, in the radiant dress, concerned the floral, slightly mentholated aromas, in the spontaneous, simple, fresh and sometimes honeyed flavour.

The presence of the vineyard to Vézelay goes back up to the Gallo-Roman time (in the end of the 1st century - beginning of the 2nd century AD). The vestiges of a temple dedicated to Bacchus were discovered under the church Saint-Etienne. The setting-up of Benedictines' monastery and the brilliance of the abbey of Vézelay, important center of pilgrimage and departure of one of the roads of Santiago de Compostela, gave a real development to the vineyard. Until the phylloxérique crisis who began in 1884, the wine of Vézelay furnished the capital. Belonging to the world heritage, Vézelay and its basilica offers to this vineyard a wonderful frame. A small group of villages squeezed around this inspired hill makes it be reborn the vineyard since the 1970s, on very former roots. In the grace of God, it blooms there, in Chardonnay especially.

The geology makes, here, sedimentary grounds of the Paris Basin and the crystalline massif meet itself. It is marked by faults and by coast with the rather different characters. A vast funnel opened to the South, at the bottom of which the Cure flows, occupies the foot of the calcareous hillsides.

White wines only, Chardonnay grape variety.

Surface in production: 54,14 ha