The world of Jacques Tatasciore works in mysterious ways, and we’d have it no other way. With his Swiss customers waiting years to receive even the tiniest of allocations, we’re happy with every bottle we get. That Jacques doesn’t like to speak of technicalities comes as part of the package and our latest inquiry regarding the details of Les Margiles with met with a good-humored response: “Pour les infos sur les Margiles, il s’agit d’un vin rouge produit en Suisse. Bonne journée.”
Jacques did go on to remark that Les Margiles is located in Cressier and is planted with Pinot vines that have traditionally been grown in Neuchâtel dating back to the time when it was part of Burgundy. These massale selections are easy to spot in a sea of clones and technical viticulture. They’re the poky, little vines with small clusters of tiny berries. They are less vigorous and naturally self-regulate themselves to the terroir in which they are grown. The yields are so meager that they hardly seem suitable for a commercial enterprise, and therefore they are pretty rare. Jacques Tatasciore only works with these types of Pinot vines.
We often refer to Domaine de la Rochette at the Vosne-Romanée of Neuchâtel since Jacques’ wines have a velvety fluidity over a firm core of compact and structured fruit, making them both filagreed and plush. Les Margiles stands out as being maybe a little more like Gevrey, so that ruins our analogy. Still, it shows the level of precision that Jacques is trying to achieve with his wines and that given the right type of Pinot and planting it in the right soils, Neuchâtel does remain part of the ancient Kingdom of Burgundy.
