Domaine Tawse

Canadian financier Moray Tawse purchased Domaine Maume - the heart of which lies in Gevrey-Chambertin - in 2012. Heading up the winemaking and the day-to-day running of the 12 hectare estate is Englishman Mark Fincham who joined the venture at its inception. Mark worked on converting the entire estate to organics, receiving certification in 2019, as well as incorporating a number of biodynamic practices.

Working across a range of wines from communal to premier cru and grand cru level, as well as a foray into a sans soufre bottling, all of his wines are silken, with concentrated fruit and great clarity, and can be enjoyed immediately, as well as with bottle age. Whilst originally from Hove, Mark trained in oenology at Montpellier before moving to the Rhone for his first vintage in 1994. This would turn out to be a very pivotal move for him and would see him spending the next few decades in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where he was the winemaker for Domaine de Pegau. In fact, his son now works the vineyards at Pegau and his daughter is beginning her own winemaking journey just around the corner. 

This is perhaps helpful in his ability to tweak and develop his methods and never be too tied to tradition and familial pressure. With such climatic variance from year to year, Mark is playing a lot with his use of whole bunch - for example with his Mazoyeres Chambertin, he was using 100% destemmed fruit, but in 2021, used 60% whole bunch. The topic of whole bunch in Burgundy is a hot one, with many opinions and ways of doing it. Mark has adopted the same method as Maison Leroy, whereby the thick part of the stem at the top of the cluster is hand cut and removed.