Trapet Père et Fils is a seventh generation Gevrey-Chambertin estate and one of the largest holders of Chambertin.
Domaine Louis Trapet in Burgundy was actually established by Louis’s son Arthur, back in 1870, when he began acquiring vineyards and laying the foundations for the present Domaine. The Trapets now have 12 hectares of vines including 1.9 hectares of the hallowed Chambertin.
The Domaine is currently run by Jean-Louis Trapet, son of Jean and cousin of the Rossignol Trapets. He is married to an Alsacienne, Andrée, and together they maintain links with and make wine from Alsace, though production remains firmly centered on Gevrey-Chambertin. Jean-Louis moved towards biodynamic farming in the mid 1990s, working first with guru Francois Bouchet and now with Pierre Masson. The domaine has been certified by Biodivin since 1998 and Demeter from 2005.
Jean-Louis would rather talk about the philosophy of wine than the detail of winemaking, but the broad brush outline is partial destemming, a cool pre-fermentation maceration before a long fermentation, then the descent by gravity of the wine to the barrel cellar, with 30 to 75% new oak used according to the cuvée. He uses no sulphur at harvest or during the vinification and maturation processes, just adding a small dose at bottling.
The wines are succulent and rounded and make an interesting contrast to the tighter, more precise style of Jean-Louis’s cousins at Domaine Rossignol-Trapet. These are wines that tend more towards elegance and finesse rather than power and extract – the exception being Le Chambertin which displays concentrated fruit and great intensity.
96 Points Allen Meadows
A brooding but fresh nose trimmed in a bit of wood spice offers positively gorgeous aromatic breadth and merges into intense, well muscled and very focused full-bodied and overtly powerful flavors that are concentrated and very firmly structured yet the structure is almost completely buffered by the buckets of extract that confer an almost velvety quality to the hugely long finish. This is still very primary and will require the better part of two decades to really be arrive at its full potential. A seriously impressive Cham that is brilliantly balanced. Wow!