Domaine de la Cadette

Jean and Catherine Montanet planted their first vineyards in 1987 near the town of Saint-Père in what later became the appellation Vézelay, where most wines are part of a coopérative. They decided to move to estate bottling when they became certified organic in 1999. The vineyard land sits deep in the Morvan, the great mountain range that runs west by northwest of the famous Côte d’Or. The land here is quite exceptional: the creation of the granite massif of the Morvan has uplifted a marl and limestone strata, revealing fossilized marine deposits. Though Vézelay is a geographic appendage of Chablis, the soils are not exactly the same. Instead of the Kimmerdigian soils, the clays here range from blue and gray to red, sometimes with no clay at all but just shallow limestone. While the climate is slightly cooler than in Chablis, the vines enjoy great sun exposure, lending a balance between generous fruit and deep mineral structure. This leads to wines of distinctive terroir.