Domaine Champet

If one were to search for today’s most purely traditional Côte Rôtie estate—the equivalent of Ch. Rayas or Henri Bonneau in Châteauneuf—it would certainly be Champet. And the fact that little here has changed over the past fifty years makes this timeless domaine all the more magical. The domaine is today ably run by Joël Champet and his sons Romain and Maxime. Joël has been a traditional icon in his own right for the past quarter century, but ...

La Viallière’s special qualities were first isolated by the revered single-vineyard Côte Rôtie pioneer Albert Dervieux, who recognized Viallière’s singularity. What Dervieux knew was that the Viallière terroir, an ideally southeast-facing slope of dark brown, fine mica-rich schist, can produce kaleidoscopically nuanced, broodingly powerful and very long-lived Côte Rôtie. But Dervieux’s last vintage was in 1989, and his epic Viallières from the...

Grower Bernard Burgaud recently said to us of Champet, “Emile was a total pioneer. He was the first to plant vines in the extraordinarily difficult conditions on the Viallière … in that parcel, he was all alone with his vines, surrounded by woods.” Today, Emile’s son Joël, and his grandsons Romain and Maxime are the guardians of the fruits from this heroic effort. Best of all, they’ve inherited Emile’s philosophy and “everything by hand” work ...