CLOS DE MEZ
Beaujolais, France
Growing up in Paris, Marie-Élodie Zighera would often escape the city for the calm of her grandmother’s vineyards in Fleurie. By her fifteenth birthday, she knew she’d wished to make her own mark on the family estate, successively passed down along the maternal line for multiple generations.
In 2004, while working at Chateau de la Tour in Clos Vougeot, Marie-Élodie’s vision as a vigneronne crystalized – after tasting a thrilling Morgon from the 1911 vintage, she drew inspiration from that bottle with an aim to craft structured, long-lived, and cellar-worthy Cru Beaujolais. Two years later, she took the reins of her family domaine in Fleurie, and made the decision to estate-bottle for the first time under the new name Clos de Mez, a play on her own initials.
As if it were 1911, tradition carries the day here – the vineyards are farmed organically (and certified as of 2018) and Marie-Élodie’s wines are made with indigenous yeasts, no temperature control, and no insulation. Only three wines are made at the estate. For her Fleurie La Dot and Morgon Chateau Gaillard bottlings, Marie-Élodie employs a cold soak, followed by pigeage upon fermentation, with 40-50% of the wine matured in barrels for 9 months. Upon blending, the maturing continues another 12 months before bottling, where the wine is held for another 12 months prior to release.
The Fleurie "Mademoiselle M" is Marie-Élodie’s freshest, most immediate cuveé and very hard to resist – semi-carbonic fermentation in cement vats only and bottled after nine months.
Wines
Clos de Mez Morgon Chateau Gaillard
Clos de Mez Fleurie "Mademoiselle M"