The Abbey of La Ferté is a Mecca of Burgundian spirituality which has generated over the course of history so many religious impulses in Europe and in the world (Cluny, Citeaux, Taizé). The Abbey of La Ferté was the first daughter of Citeaux, founded in 1113. Very quickly, the monks and lay brothers developed their possessions and cultivated vines in Givry. The Thenard family acquired the abbey in 1793 and thus had the chance to own part of the abbey's vines. The Givry terroir has a very old reputation for quality, which it derives of course from its clay-limestone soils, but above all from its slopes facing south-east and partly, for the best of them, to the south. This is the case of the Premier Cru "La Servoisine" which in the 12th century was called "Em Sarvoignenes" and which appeared in the possessions of the monks from 1170.
As in haute cuisine, we only make good wines with good grapes. The 2.37 hectares of the Domaine, including 1 hectare of Premier Cru, are planted at 10,000 vines per hectare, according to the Burgundian tradition, the highest density of all the major regions and a practice that guarantees high quality. The vines are cultivated in reasoned culture with limited inputs of treatment products. The average age of the estate's vines is 35 years.
The team brings the greatest rigor and extreme requirement to the care of its vines, its vinifications and the aging of its wines. We know how to take risks at Domaine de la Ferté while waiting for the optimal maturity, that which is reached when the seeds crackle to the teeth and have lost all their bitterness. The grapes, harvested by hand, are sorted before placing them in vats to eliminate those which are not very ripe or degraded. The vatting takes place for a long time, in three phases: pre-fermentation maceration, fermentation, post-fermentation maceration. The vast majority of the wines are aged in oak barrels (around 18 months), a quarter of which is replaced each year. Bottling is done when the wines are still on their primary aromas of fruit and flowers.