The Milkman Cometh: Frédéric Cossard's Burgundy

A native of Burgundy, Frederic Cossard doesn't come from a family of winegrowers. Instead, his family background is the milk trade. He went to milk school and worked in the milk trade for ten years traveling around Burgundy where he met many vignerons and got interested in what they do. He decided to change jobs and established his domaine in Saint-Romain in 1996.

Today, Frederic Cossard is one of Burgundy's small generation of young winemakers bucking the modern, conventional way of winemaking that's dependent on intervention and chemicals. He goes way back to the roots of how wine was made in Burgundy before chemicals, additives and sulphur got introduced. To do this today is not easy because one has to almost re-learn winemaking, but Cossard's background in the milk trade has helped him a lot. He equates making unpasteurized raw-milk cheese to making sulphur free and chemical-free wines.

But what is Cossard's point to all of these efforts? Just like any true Burgundian, Cossard aims to make authentic wines that express their terroir as purely as possible. He starts, of course, with fruit from a great site farmed organically. His 2010 Nuits-St.-Georges Premeir Cru Les Damodes is a fine example.

Les Damodes is a very interesting terroir as it combines Nuits' power and generosity with the elegance of a Vosne. The Les Damodes vineyard lies at a high slope bordering Vosne-Romanee to the north and Boudots, Cras, and Richemone on the Nuits side. The terroir has a lot of Vosne in it and Cossard's 2010 shows that in its firmness and more upright character compared to other Nuits. The vintage offers very good richness and concentration, and all through the finish there is vibrant minerality and energy.

Nuits-St-Georges Premier Cru Les Damodes, Frederic Cossard 2010 $105.00 (order here)