This is a truly family affair - Jean-Marc and his sister Michele Javouhey-Roulot run the Domaine, together with their mother, Mme Genevieve Roulot, Guy's widow, from a modern house-cum-cellars on the periphery of the town. Jean-Marc is a somewhat serious person, who regards visitors, especially writers, with a degree of caution amounting to downright suspicion. However, when one establishes one's credentials and gets to know him he is a man of warm amiability.
Although his career as a classical actor has taken second place to the Domaine, he does occasionally leave to tread the boards. His mother and sister manage the financial and office departments and wisely leave him to get on with the viticultural and cellar work. The elegant Mme Roulot senior mans her computer in the small Roulot office. whilst Michele takes firm charge of finance, with the air of someone entirely capable of dealing firmly with recalcitrant - be they customers or bank managers.
Jean-Marc's responsibilities have recently increased, with his marriage to Hubert de Montille's daughter Alix. Now you are just as likely to find him tasting in Volnay as manning the pumps in Meursault. Alix's timing, and choice of husband, were fortunate - as she has just acquired her first plot of Chardonnay - in Puligny's magnificent Premier Cru, Les Caillerets. Further demands on Jean-Marc's time and skills come from his friend Pascal Marchand, who has cast him in the important, though unremunerated role of sympathetic counsellor for his first few white vinifications at the Clos des Epeneaux.
The Domaine is of post-war construction _ built up by Guy Roulot during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with purchases of vineyards in Meursault, Auxey-Duresses and Monthelie. Jean-Marc learnt the ropes from his father and more or less continues in the fashion set at that time.
Roulot is a model of careful viticulture: short pruning and two separate spring evasivages, the first to remove suckers sprouting on the lower part of each plant and the second to cut off any double shoots which sap strength from the vine, limit yields and ensure that the available photosynthetic power is concentrated where it is most needed - in the young bunches.
Since 1992, all the Domaine's vines are hoed rather than treated with herbicides. Respect for the soil has led Jean-Marc to join a group of 50 estates commissioning their own organic compost from Cyril Bongiraud, an ex-Romanee-Conti employee. Spray treatments are now more precisely targeted, which reduces both the volume and concentration used. Gone is the wasteful, and highly visible, cover-all cloud of spray which destroyed useful micro-flora as well as the fungi and pests intended.
Vine replacements are carried out individually using 3 clones in each parcel replanted, giving greater complexity in the final wine. Soil is ploughed up round the roots (buttage) each winter only on those parcels which have been worked by hoe, rather than treated with herbicides.
Harvesting is particularly careful; vintagers are never left alone, because they tend to cut bunches indiscriminately. Instead, an experienced member of the Roulot team shadows them to ensure that only fully ripe bunches are picked and more importantly that any pourriture sec (dry rot) is excised. Limited amounts of pourriture humide are acceptable as this adds a degree or two of alcohol to the wine, and thus, especially in leaner years, a little more richness and amplitude.
Once harvested, the grapes are pressed in a pneumatic Bucher press. The pressing only lasts an hour and a half - some 20-30 minutes less than normal elsewhere in the commune, which results in less juice, but of a higher quality.
Jean-Marc also firmly believes that too long at maximum pressure extracts skin and pip tannins which are detrimental to wine quality. His press enables him to programme the total duration of each press cycle, the time taken to reach maximum pressure, and the time spent at both ends of each cycle, giving him total control. A tangential advantage is that the cake remaining after pressing is much more amenable to distillation of a quality marc, on which this Domaine prides itself; 'we have no wish to distil straw.'
Alcoholic fermentation is preceded by a period of maceration pelliculaire. This, pioneered outside France, leaves the grape juice on its skins for between a few hours and several days to extract flavour and aroma compounds, many situated just beneath the grape skin and not readily detached by normal pressing. In the absence of alcohol, extraction of undesirable harsh tannins is also kept to a minimum. In addition, this process delays the onset of fermentation which Jean-Marc considers beneficial.
Another matter on which he expresses strong views is batonnage - rousing the lees in cask to add gras and complexity, using an old stick or broom handle, if you are traditional, or a specially bent stainless-steel tool if you want to be technologically correct. Although practised elsewhere, this is a particularly Meurisaltien habit. Burgundian lore has it that 'A woman, a Puligny and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be'; maybe, but there is a sight more beating in Meursault than in its illustrious neighbour. The most beneficial beatings are those administered between the termination of alcoholic fermentation and malo finishing.
Frequency of batonnage is a matter of judgement, not science. Although it noticeably adds richness some, including Jean Marc, detect a compensating loss in finesse, and contend that you rouse bad lees with good. Some growers rouse as many as 50 times during the weeks following fermentation, others twice weekly or just once a month. Jean-Marc favours the latter on the grounds that it minimises losses whilst maximising gains.
The whites are vinified in 20--30% of new oak, the proportion depending both on the character of the Cru and the vintage. Whilst fermentation proceeds more rapidly in new than in older oak, it is generally felt that the qualities imparted by new wood harmonise better with the wine when fermentation. rather than just subsequent maturation, is carried out in new oak. So there is a balance to be struck.
In February, after malo, the different lots are assembled, sulphur levels adjusted and the wines then returned to cask until the following June. The lees are kept for making Fine - a brandy distilled from wine - another speciality of the house. After fining and second racking the wines are plate-filtered and then bottled. Jean-Marc is anxious to have a more sensitive carton filter to minimise the deleterious effects of filtration on flavour and acidity levels. Total etevage is about 10-11 months; this may seem short, especially for the better wines, but Jean- Marc considers that his cellars are not cold enough to justify any longer in cask.
There has been much experimenting with different fining agents since Jean-Marc discovered that traditional bentonite fining tended to give a rather broader, less brilliant, style of wine, whereas fish fining was much less violent and more aromatically true. He also found that some vineyard sites were more compatible with fish fining than with bentonite. On tasting, the 'fish' wines showed a much tighter, leaner spectrum of flavours ¬this was especially evident in the Vireuils and Tessons cuvees - whereas the profile of 'bentonite' wines was more diffuse - particularly for the Charmes, Meix Chavaux and Perrieres. The provisional conclusion is that bentonite, although needing greater care than 'fish', is better for wines intended for long ageing. Interestingly, bentonite-casein finings are much more common in Meursault, whereas col de poisson is used more in Puligny. One is led to speculate on whether any similar comparisons have been made by anyone in Puligny.
The Roulot style is midway between the overtly riper wines of Dominic Lafon and the more austere, intellectual, style of Michel Ampeau. The wines have frank aromas, not masked by either oak or lees, and a marked richness, even in less opulent years, which in time develops the classic nut/honey character so often found in Meursault. However, there is a lean, cerebral quality in these wines which gives them a considerable depth and interest. The basic Bourgogne Chardonnay, from 1 ha in Meursault, is usually excellent - plenty of richness and concentration backed by a firm structure, derived in part from con¬tact with new oak, and an attractive gout de terroir. The cuvees from the various Meursault Village lieux-dits are well made and interesting, evincing the individuality of each terroir. The Meix Chavaux is generally quite rich, tight and distinctively spicy, the Vrreuil- from vines on the Auxey-Duresses border - rather fatter and livelier. The Tillets, from thinner soils above Premier Cru Goutte d'Or, has more acidity and class and soft¬ centred, bright minerally flavours, good, fleshy richness and plenty of life-giving puissance; it is at its best in naturally ripe vintages - e.g. 1992 and 1993.
Tessons is perhaps more typically Meursault -long, warm and rich, with aromas of grilled nuts and acacia, and a slightly limey flavour; well up to Premier Cru quality in good vintages. This vies for Village supremacy with Luchets - a semi-sloping vineyard which gives more finely structured, plumpish wine of arguably greater breeding than the rest.
The two Roulot Premiers Crus are invariably excellent. Les Charmes - open, ripe, with a broad, well balanced structure, develops well over a decade or more. Les Perrieres is yet finer: a powerful, complete wine, with all the richness, length and class one expects from this noble vineyard and, in vintages such as 1983 and 1990, great longevity.
The Domaine is back in skilled and conscientious Roulot hands. Until Jean-Marc is called away for an extended run of Hamlet or Macbeth, it remains one of the finest sources of Meursault.