Francois Lamarche

The vineyard portfolio of this important domaine was created masterfully over three generations of the Lamarche family. Most of the domaines holdings are in the village of Vosne-Romanee. The jewel in the crown is the monopole vineyard of La Grande Rue, a 1.65 ha sandwiched between the vineyards of Romanee-Conti and La Romanee on the north, and La Tache on the south. Interestingly, this fine vineyard was honored Grand Cru classification only in 1992 (this was not done in the original classification of the 1930s because of tax reasons). This is the second smallest Grand Cru in the Cote dOr (the smallest is La Romanee with 0.85 ha). The reclassification was not easy to achieve back in 1992, because for years the quality of the wines didnt match the ones of its neighboring prestigious vineyard, mainly due to poor vineyard management and wine making.

The other domaines vineyards include fine parcels of Grands-chezeaux, chezeaux and unique m矇lange of Clos de Vougeot from three different parcels located at different parts of the Clos, an array of top notch Premier Crus in Vosne Roman矇e inc. Les Malconsorts, Les Suchots, Les Chaumes, La Croix Rameau (with recent addition of Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Cras). It took hard work over years to bring the domaine back on track, and the hard work was evident since the 1999 vintage and dramatically since the 2005, two years after Nicole completed her diplome in Oenology and joined her father in the domaine. Since 2006 Nicole is solely in charge of the domaine, and she got the freedom to run the domaine as per her own philosophy. The vineyard practice was changed to biological cultivation, the barrels suppliers were changed and less new wood present (maximum 50% for the top wines depending on the vintage), and the equipment in the winery was updated to modern standards.

Lamarche is now a top notch domaine, with wines expressing themselves through their terroir rather than power.