Manciat

  • Mâcon, Burgundy, France
Domaine Jean Manciat

Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this profile of Manciat:

We know the Mâconnais well. Denyse Louis’ family comes from this area, has vineyards with the coop in Lugny, and we own a home there. We knew the coop and négociant wines that dominate the Mâconnais and the American marketplace, but it was a 1986 Mâcon from a small artisan estate that was the revelation and the start to our search for comparable wines from other regions. We take special pride in our selections from the Mâconnais, our local wines.

Some of the coops produce millions and millions of bottles. Jean Manciat’s vineyards can be toured on foot in a few minutes (5.5 hectares). When Manciat took over his family estate, he immediately left the coop in Charnay. He replanted extensively but kept as many of the old vines as possible. The yields average less than 50 hectoliters/hectare (the coops routinely harvest twice as much) and the picking is done by hand (a tradition totally lost around here except at the best Mâcon estates).

Manciat prunes his Chardonnay vines in the Côte d’Or fashion (taille Guyot), leaving a shorter cane that is less productive. The Mâconnais style of pruning is to bend a long cane into an arc, but Manciat finds the quality much higher with a shorter cane. Manciat is also experimenting with various agricultural techniques, such as sowing particular varieties of grass between rows, to eliminate the use of herbicides and alleviate soil erosion. He uses a type of old rootstock which he finds ideally suited to the chalky soil of the Mâconnais and replants with a mix of clones and grafts taken from old vines in the Pouilly-Fuissé area.

Manciat has a passion for wines fermented and aged in oak barrels, and uses a fair amount of new wood for his Vieilles Vignes cuvée and his miniscule production of Saint-Véran. But the Mâcon-Charnay Franclieu featured here is made in stainless-steel vats, to express the fruity, floral aromas and flinty minerality that characterize the best Chardonnay in the region.

Image Producer PRODUCT Description Country / Region

DB1012-21
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay
2021
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. From estate vines on clay-limestone soils averaging 20-25 years old. Whole clusters are harvested by hand, pressed...
France

DB1012-22
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay
2022
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. From estate vines on clay-limestone soils averaging 20-25 years old. Whole clusters are harvested by hand, pressed...
France

DB8930-21
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay "Franclieu"
2021
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. Considered by Jean Manciat to be his best site, Franclieu is an east-facing parcel of 30-35-year-old vines on a stony...
France

DB8930-22
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay "Franclieu"
2022
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. Considered by Jean Manciat to be his best site, Franclieu is an east-facing parcel of 30-35-year-old vines on a stony...
France

DB8897-20
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay "Vieilles Vignes"
2020
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. From 70-year-old vines, planted mid-slope with eastern exposure on clay-limestone soils. They are sustainably farmed and...
France

DB1145-20
Sustainable
Manciat Saint Véran
2020
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. Manciat's vines mainly lie in the Charnay but there are two parcels in St. Veran totalling a half hectare. The Davayé...
France

DB1144-22
Sustainable
Manciat Mâcon-Charnay "Les Crays"
2022
Chardonnay
100% Chardonnay. Named for the high concentration of chalk in the soils, "Les Crays" comes from a stony, west-facing parcel of vines...
France