L'Aitonnement

History of Domaine de l'Aitonnement

The history of the estate is first and foremost that of a forgotten vineyard, that of the village of Aiton, in the heart of the Alps. The area had vines more than three hundred years ago and still covered two hundred hectares at the end of the 1940s, renowned in particular for its mondeuse. Rural exodus and the extreme difficulty of working these hillsides, some of which reach seventy percent gradients and preclude any tractor passage, progressively led to the abandonment of this ancestral heritage. Only a handful of die-hards continued to cultivate the vine there.

Maxime Dancoine spent a long time travelling before launching himself, never straying far from the world of wine: a BTS in viticulture and oenology in Beaune, a degree in wine commerce in Colmar, then an agricultural engineering curriculum in Switzerland, at Changins. Arriving in Savoie in 2010, he first held a position at the Chamber of Agriculture, completed a formative stint at Domaine Louis Magnin, one of the pioneers of local organic viticulture, then worked at the regional oenological laboratory, which gave him an intimate knowledge of Savoie's diversity. In 2016, he settled in Aiton and began collaborating with Marie-Dominique and Bernard Bachellier, the last winemakers in the village and discreet artisans of its renewal. They progressively passed on to him a part of their vineyard, in particular the white grape varieties. The name of the estate says everything about his philosophy: faced with a terroir that must be listened to, questioned and understood, the foremost requirement is to approach it with a sense of wonder. From the very first vintage, the purity and the substance of the wines won over critics, and Maxime Dancoine now stands alongside Michel Grisard, Gilles Berlioz, Louis Magnin and Jean-Yves Péron among the names carrying the renaissance of Savoie.

Terroirs and Vineyards of Domaine de l'Aitonnement

The vines cling to high hilltops, fully south-facing and open onto the valley. The soils combine marls, schist and limestone, with depths of topsoil often reduced to around thirty centimeters above the schistous limestone. This leanness, combined with the altitude and alpine temperature variations, yields grapes with slow ripening and vibrant acidity, hence wines that are naturally light in alcohol, between ten and twelve degrees, and of a captivating salinity. The steep slopes make any mechanized work impossible: every gesture is done by hand, sometimes almost in weightlessness on the most precipitous plots.

The other great richness of Aiton is its ampelographic diversity: around thirty grape varieties have been recorded across the few still-active estates in the village. The adventure began with a few ares of old mondeuse noire vines, young and old jacquères, and altesses of around fifteen years of age. Added to these were a conservatory of douce noire, a plot of persan, old plots in co-planting, as well as new plantings from mass selections of mondeuse noire and joubertin, not forgetting the étraire de la Dhuy, an old grape variety from the Grésivaudan, the mondeuse grise and the blanc de Maurienne. The vines are trained mainly in gobelet, but also in cordon de Royat, with certain old jacquères from the Plantets exceeding one hundred years of age. Farming is entirely organic, with particular care given to biodiversity and the maintenance of natural spaces and ecological niches that help the vines better withstand climatic hazards.

Winemaking at Domaine de l'Aitonnement

For Maxime Dancoine, a clean vine yields healthy grapes, and healthy grapes yield a wine that reflects its terroir. All winemaking is carried out without sulfur, from vatting through to bottling. The whites are gently pressed, chilled for three to four days, then housed according to the characteristics of the vintage in five-hundred-liter stoneware jars, three-hundred-and-twenty or seven-hundred-liter clay jars, or four-hundred-and-fifty-liter demi-muids, each vessel providing a different micro-oxygenation. Alcoholic fermentation, malolactic fermentation and aging follow in succession, on full lees, without battonage or racking.

The reds follow an equally singular protocol: the grapes enter whole into cocciopesto amphoras, a mixture of crushed Tuscan stones and food-grade cement, inerted and maintained at around twenty-five degrees for around fifteen days, which favors a natural infusion rather than mechanical extraction. A few bucket pump-overs and punch-downs are sufficient to keep the pomace moist during the first week. After pressing, the wine completes its fermentation in barrel and in jar. No chaptalization is practiced. Filtration is not systematic and sulfur, when added, is done so at a minimal dose at bottling, with nitrogen to protect the wine. Each operation is aligned with the lunar calendar.

The Cuvées of Domaine de l'Aitonnement

Genesis is the founding cuvée, the one through which everything began, and it is entirely devoted to jacquère. It comes from plots located in the Plantets zone, whose main characteristic is the exceptional age of the vines: these century-old plants trained in cordon de Royat are tended with extreme care. Harvested on the same day, gently pressed and then aged on full lees in jars or demi-muids, they yield an elegant, delicate and fresh wine, with lemony and chalky notes, of chiseled finesse. Subtle and without heaviness, this cuvée rehabilitates a grape variety long misunderstood and benefits from two or three years of bottle aging.

Big Bang lives up to its name perfectly: this blended cuvée is in constant evolution, having grown from two to four grape varieties and destined to welcome even more. It brings together today altesse, jacquère, mondeuse grise and blanc de Maurienne, sourced from six young plots planted on shallow schistous limestone soils. The combination of the richness, structure and elegance of altesse with the finesse, freshness and subtlety of jacquère — a rare practice in Savoie — produces a white wine of beautiful aromatic complexity, with a marked gustatory freshness and a captivating salinity. Irresistible from its youth, it can also be forgotten for four to five years in the cellar.

Solar is dedicated to altesse, considered the noblest white grape variety of the alpine arc. An exceptional exposure of the vines allows this wine to achieve a remarkable minerality, a luminous finesse and a brilliant structure, making it one of the most accomplished expressions of the grape variety in the region. Vesta, under the Chignin-Bergeron appellation, showcases roussanne, known locally as bergeron: dense, tactile, carried by aromas of ripe yellow fruits and apricot, it retains the tension and drinkability that characterize the entire range, without ever falling into heaviness.

Dark Side reveals the hidden face of mondeuse noire, a grape variety long overshadowed that Maxime Dancoine is bringing back to the fore. The grapes come from the steep Puttets plot, a unique plot grouping vines of at least eighty years trained in gobelet, harvested on a slope reaching seventy-five percent. Placed in cocciopesto amphora for a fifteen-day gentle infusion maceration, the wine develops notes of dark fruits, pepper and liquorice, with that generous polyphenolic structure characteristic of the grape variety. It is a wine for cellaring that merits at least two years of rest in the bottle and reaches its peak between three and five years. Nebula completes the red wine range under IGP Vin des Allobroges, in a more airy and more immediate register, where the estate's rare grape varieties — douce noire, persan and joubertin — express a crunchy fruit, an alpine freshness and a fineness of tannins that testify to the full rediscovered potential of the Aiton vineyard.