NV Domaine François Mikulski, Cremant de Bourgogne, Burgundy, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

A blend of 50% Pinot Noir grapes, 35% Chardonnay and 15% Aligoté.

Harvested by hand in small, perforated crates, the grapes remain whole and intact so that the different-quality first and second pressing juices (cuvée and taille) can be separated into fractions, thus avoiding the risk of oxidation. They are pressed in a pneumatic press, following strict proportions: 150kg of pressed grapes must give a maximum of 100 litres of musts. The juice ferments in stainless steel tanks, after settling naturally for around 24 hours.

Once the alcoholic and malolactic fermentation achieved, basis wines are blended, bottled and sealed with crown caps, with an adding of sugar and yeasts, to have a third bottle fermentation occur, that will produce CO2 and what we call “Prise de Mousse”. Then, bottles are stored horizontally in our cellars and will age on lees during at least 12 months at a regulated temperature between 12 and 15°C.

Next, bottles are settled on their tips and riddled on gyropallets, in order to force down the deposit of lees in the neck of the bottles. Deposit that will be then forced out thanks to the disgorging.

Before the final corking and labelling, the “Liqueur d’Expédition” will be added following the final required dosage.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

François’ Mikulski’s father was Lieutenant Mieczyslaw Mikulski who escaped from occupied Poland in 1939, fleeing to England and joining the Resistance troops of the Free Polish Forces. There he met his future wife, a Burgundian woman working on an English army base, and moved to Brussels where François was born and raised. Luckily for us and the world of wine, François spent his formative summers in Burgundy, where he fell in love with the agrarian lifestyle and determined that he would one day make wine himself. He inherited his first plots of Meursault in 1992 from his late uncle, Pierre Boillot. Since that time, he has relentlessly pursued his authenticity, purity and elegance through acute attention to biological balance in the vineyard and terroir minded élevage practices in the cellar. After meticulous sorting in the vineyards the grapes are de-stemmed and lightly pressed. Natural yeasts are used in the fermentation after which the wines undergo an élevage 10-12 months. François typically restrains his new oak use to about 20%, believing that excessive wood masks full expression of the terroir.