Domaine Belleville: A new Burgundy name to look out for

Domaine Belleville is an important estate in Rully dating back to the early 20th century, owning 18 hectares across the Côte Chalonnaise and Côte d’Ôr.

The estate has strong links to most of the key climats in the Rully AOP, including holdings in Les Cloux and Rabourcé on the site of the original Gallo-Roman village.

Scroll down for Andy Howard MW’s tasting notes and scores of 9 Domaine Belleville wines

With the increased interest in wines from the Côte Chalonnaise, together with a number of recent very high-quality vintages and the continued upward surge in prices for wines from the Côte d’Ôr, it is well worth looking at the wines from estates such as Belleville as sources for premium Bourgogne wines at affordable prices.

Belleville was purchased in 2017 by Denise Dupré and Mark Nunnelly – two American wine-lovers – and Jean-Luc Vitoux, an ex-wine law lawyer who was born in Champagne.

Although Dupré and Nunnelly reside in the US, they have many investments in the hospitality sector across France such as the Royal Champagne hotel in Champillon; Champagne house Leclerc Briant in Epernay; and the hotel/restaurant Le Chateau de la Commarine in Pommard.

Domaine Belleville comprises 10.5ha in Rully and 5.5ha in Mercurey, with a further 2ha of vineyards in Gevrey, Chambolle-Musigny, Puligny Montrachet and Santenay.

In total the estate owns holdings in six Rully Premier Cru, with an additional Premier Cru (Clos l’Evêque) in Mercurey. Four more Rully wines are bottled as separate lieu-dit, together with five lieu-dit from Mercurey. Vitoux notes that the estates objective is to focus on just one plot and to respect and express terroir diversity.

The team at Belleville is headed up by young winemaker Charles Nebout, an oenologist and son of a winegrower in Saint Pourçain. The estate is in the process of converting to organic, with the first ‘organic’ harvest taking place in 2018.

Other improvements are being made to aid the focus on terroir expression and quality. All white grapes are now transported from vineyard to winery in small boxes, before pressing and fermentation in stainless steel. Post-fermentation, white wines are generally aged for 8-12 months with a maximum of 25 barrels used. Red wines are nearly all destemmed, before 10-14 months ageing with 25-30% new wood. In total the estate produces around 100,000 bottles.

Jean-Luc Vitoux explains that Domaine Belleville’s objective is to become one of the most well-known in the Côte Chalonnaise, and there is no shortage of quality with these wines. To my mind, there is still a little more work to do in emphasising individual terroir – a number of wines had a very glossy feel, with oak characters a little more evident than expected. However, the wines (from the 2018 vintage) are still very youthful and with cellaring, the vineyard character is certain to increase.

There was a significant step up in quality from the village (and some of the lieu-dit) wines to Premier Cru level, as one would expect.

Within the whites, the lieu-dits of Rully La Crée and Mercurey Les Villeranges were very promising, displaying elegant and understated characters without oak being over prevalent. Of the Premier Cru, Rully 1er Cru Pucelle was drinking beautifully already but with a long future ahead, and of the red wines, Rully 1er Cru Chapitre and Mercurey 1er Cru Clos l’Evêque, were fine wines with lovely fruit purity, restrained oak, and great potential to age.

Domaine Belleville is certainly a name to look out for – these are undeniably high-quality wines which are bound to increase the growing reputation of Rully and Mercurey.

See Andy Howard MW’s tasting notes and scores of 9 Domaine Belleville wines

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