Domaine Joseph Colin

France, Burgundy

Joseph Colin is one of the four children of Marc Colin (the others being Pierre-Yves, Damien and Caroline), who had a large domaine with vines in Saint Aubin, Santenay, Chassagne and Puligny. Pierre-Yves left the family domaine in 2005 and since then Joseph was an important member of the team there. After making a token 1800 or so bottles on his own account in 2016, he started in earnest with 2017, with seven hectares of vines, from which he makes an astonishing nineteen different cuvées.

Most of the vines he has in Saint Aubin are young, but by limiting bunches to six or seven per vine, he manages to control the yields. With plenty of time to learn his craft at Domaine Marc Colin, he has developed into a confident winemaker. He experimented with sulphur levels in the wines at the family domaine, so coming to his current view that the wines should be left the longest time possible without added S02, perhaps adding some at racking, but if he feels there's still enough C02 after racking, he will not even add any at that stage, so as to develop 'wine at its purest', but he is keen to say also that he has no standard recipe - he will adapt to each wine. In 2018 he again used no S02 until just before bottling, but he's clear that if there's some botrytis, for example, he will add it earlier. Genarally nothing is either fined or filtered.

Joseph is a very bright new prospect for lovers of precise, pure white Burgundies with fresh acidity for crystalline definition.

In 2018 Joseph picked over more than three weeks, starting on the 26th August and not finishing the last plots until the 20th of September.