Description
Jessica Litaud’s Mâcon-Fuissé comes from a 0.18-hectare plot of 36-year-old vines. The nose shines with its lingering aromas of yellow-fleshed fruits. All this is enveloped by a minerality and complexity typical of the Fuissé terroirs. This is a magnificent bottle to accompany a seafood risotto or razor clams à la plancha.
About the Mâcon-Fuissé appellation
Character of the wines
With a crystalline colour and pale golden highlights, the Mâcon-Fuissé white, discreet on the first nose, reveals itself as you taste it, with very floral aromas (hawthorn, honeysuckle, lilac). On the palate, its straightforward attack is accompanied by a lively, tangy and persistent finish. It combines a pleasing aromatic structure with purity, like a compromise between the cheerful expression of Mâcon and the minerality of Burgundy.
Location
Nestled in the heart of a verdant amphitheatre, Fuissé’s appellation area is clearly defined by the bend in the limestone ridge, whose eastern and western crests border the Mâcon-Loché and Saint-Véran appellations respectively, overlooking the village of Chasselas.
At the foot of the Bois de la Roche flows the Romanin stream, a spring reputed to be inexhaustible. Whilst the sound of this name evokes the ancient origins of the early rural settlement, Fuissé also constitutes the historic heart of white wine production in the Mâconnais, sold on the nascent Parisian market as early as the 18th century.
The existence of the ‘Les Chardonnets’ vineyard site – a spelling still in use in the first half of the 20th century to refer to the Chardonnay grape variety – reminds us of its early presence.
Writers of that period even described this vein of gold in the vineyard as the ‘Fuissé white vein’, despite the fact that the area was extensively planted with the red Gamay variety at the time. This historical precedence entitles Fuissé to legitimately claim the origin of the Pouilly-Fuissé appellation, whilst also being able to use its name in conjunction with that of Mâcon.
Terroirs
At the southern end of the longest of the Mâconnais’s chain of hills, the Mâcon-Fuissé vineyard stretches on either side of the boundary into Pouilly-Fuissé. At the eastern end, the plateau near the Bois des Fousses (280 metres) enjoys consistent sunshine throughout the day.
To the west, the Bois Denis plateau, at 417 metres, bordering the Chasselas vineyards, enjoys the same exposure conditions, in a climate where the sum of summer temperatures averages over 1,600°C, compared to 1,400°C in central Mâconnais.
These vineyards, on the edge of the Pouilly-Fuissé, Saint-Véran and Mâcon-Loché appellations, occupy, to the west and at the summit of the Bois de la Roche (350 metres), the same Bathonian marl-limestone substrate, whose stones crumble into flakes on warm, reddish-yellowish soil.
To the east, the areas of Bois des Fousses and Bois de la Croix, largely encroached upon by the spreading vines, offer a more distinctive geological configuration, consisting of pink microgranites from the Hercynian basement, found notably near Vergisson.
(Source: Vins de Bourgogne)
What to eat with a Mâcon-Fuissé from Jessica Litaud?
- leek tart
- Creamy risottos
- Seafood à la plancha (razor clams)
- Oysters au gratin
- Burgundy snails
