Lucien Le Moine
 
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ABOUT US






Lucien Le Moine is a small House of Grands Crus in Beaune.

It is a two people operation established in1999: "we came here because of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, we stayed because we discovered "La Côte d'Or" and its wines but also the Burgundians as People and Friends.

Lucien Le Moine is our way of living the seasons in Burgundy and growing roots deep into that beautiful place where we chose to live.


THE PEOPLE
Mounir learned and worked in a Trappist Monastery where he discovered Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. He studied Viticulture and Oenology at the ENSAM Montpellier, than had a 6 years experience in different Wineries in Burgundy, other areas of France and California where he became fascinated by the "old way" of growing, vinificating and aging wines. One day he decided to push to the extreme everything he saw and experienced and created, with Rotem, a small cellar dedicated to the ideas of purity and typicity.

Rotem comes from a cheese making family. She learned Agriculture both at the Technion and the ENESAD in Dijon and oriented her studies towards wine. At the end of her title she won a national prize from the French Academy of Agriculture for a study on the Côte d'Or than she participated in many Harvests in Burgundy and California. She joined Mounir in 1999 and they Started Lucien Le Moine together.


THE IDEA
Having studied, lived and worked in Burgundy for several years we got to know many good growers in the region. We decided to join these relations and our devotion to quality in a small selected production of Crus."

Lucien Le Moine produces only Grands and Premiers Crus from Côte d'Or. We try to have the Most Beautiful Crus in each Village, we renew our selection every year, depending of our view of the year. That's why we can have 67 Barrels in 2002, 47 in 2003 and 72 in 2004, the only thing we know is that we'll never produce more than 100 Barrels (30 000 bottles), this is the size of the cellar we bought in Beaune and this is the way for us to be able to do everything "by hand" and "by ourselves".

Our choice of a small size and of doing everything by ourselves allows us to apply in details our technical perception and to adjust and respond to each vintage and each wine.


HOW THINGS ARE DONE?
From a technical perspective few guidelines are at the heart of our way of doing:
  1. As you can see from the home page, we work with the best Crus of each village; we produce one to three barrels per Cru (300 - 900 bottles). This small production per Cru is maybe our biggest technical challenge since from the very selection, through aging to bottling each barrel, by itself, needs to be perfect: as there is no "blending" at the end.
  2. We do the selection of our wines very early; we taste the jus-wine just after the press, buy and put them in our barrels. This allows us to age "our way" from the very beginning of a wine's life. All our wines are aged by us from press to bottling that means that each October we know exactly our production for the vintage.
  3. We buy "by a friend" our oak from the Jupilles forest, we are maybe the only Winery in the world to age ALL our wines in this very fine oak, we produce our barrels "by another friend" with a slow toast on coals, personally adapted to the Crus and even to the years.
  4. We age all the Crus on 100% of their lees: both whites and reds. We do gentle "battonages" (stirring) three to four times a month putting the lees in suspension in the wine, the wine than feeds upon the lees gaining in balance and complexity. We keep the wines on their lees until bottling never racking during aging. Still, since each year is different, we adapt these generalities to each vintage; so we can have some years without any stirring (2004) and some with stirring every week (2003, 2005).
  5. We close our cellar in order to keep humidity and low temperature through spring, which allows us to push the malolactic fermentation late into summer. The natural CO2 associated to this fermentation protects the wines during the hot summer enabling us an extremely limited use of SO2.
  6. Once malolactic is done we follow the maturity of each barrel, tasting it twice a month. Bottling takes place after a full moon (where atmospheric pressure is favorable), by gravity, Cru by Cru whenever a wine is ready.
  7. All our wines, whites and reds are neither fined nor filtered.
  8. As our wines are never pumped (no racking, no filtration, bottling by gravity...) the natural CO2 from the malolactic is present even in bottle. In fact we are looking for this presence as it helps protecting the wine in the most natural way.
    The CO2 protects the wine by closing it upon itself that is why
    ALL OUR WINES MUST BE DECANTED;
    With decanting CO2 will leave and the wine will show itself. If one has time decanting can be for a few hours, if not a few minutes: by pouring the wine into the decanter and moving it slowly allowing the gas to leave.

Finally: Enjoy!!!! This is what it is all about
Lucien Le Moine, La Maison des Grands Crus de Côte d'Or.

Nous renouvelons notre selections de vins chaque année selon notre vision du millésime. Nous avons fixée notre production maximale à 100 pièces par an pour pouvoir faire les choses "à la main" et par nous-mêmes.

Nous n'élevons qu' 1 à 3 pièces par vin (300-900 bouteilles).

C'est notre plus grand défi technique car chaque pièce en elle-même doit être parfaite!

Notre selection se fait tôt: à la vendange. Nous prenons chaque vin en charge du pressurage jusqu'à la mise en bouteilles.

Nous achetons notre bois dans la forêt de Jupilles. La chauffe des pièces se fait lentement sur la braise, une chauffe adaptée à chaque millésime.

Nous aimons les lies, grosses et fines, et en grande quantité (5-8 litres par pièce).

Nous bâtonnons rouges et blancs 2–4 fois par mois, très doucement. Nos vins se nourrissent des lies, pour devenir plus harmonieux et plus complexes. Nous ne soutirons jamais pendant l'élevage.

Grâce à notre cave bien froide, la fermentation maltolactique est retardée et se fait en été. Le CO2 naturel de cette fermentation protège les vins et nous permet de limiter à une très faible dose l'usage de SO2.

Nous goûtons nos vins 2 fois par mois pour suivre leur evolution. La mise en bouteilles se fait après une pleine lune, par gravité, appellation par appellation dés qu'un vin est prêt.

Nos vins, blancs et rouges, ne sont ni collés ni filtrés.

Comme nos vins ne sont jamais manipulés mécaniquement, le CO2 de la fermentation se trouve en bouteilles! Un carafage aidera ce CO2 à partir et le vin à ce dévoiler.

SANTÉ! Après tout c’est bien de cela qu’il s’agit.





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LUCIEN LE MOINE LM.SAS 1 RUELLE MORLOT 21200 BEAUNE FRANCE.
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