Charles Noëllat's family history
The story of Charles Noëllat through the centuries
The Noëllat family before Charles' birth
The Noëllat name has been part of Burgundy's wine history since the 17th century. Originally, the Noëllats were a family of winegrowers from Meuilley, a village east of Nuits-Saint-Georges. Heir to the family, Félix Noëllat established the Domaine in Vosne-Romanée in the 19th century. He had two sons: Charles, born in 1868, and Ernest Noëllat. When he died at the beginning of the 20th century, his two sons decided to go their separate ways.
Charles Noëllat and his wife take over the estate
Here begins the story of the Charles Noëllat estate, founded by Charles and his wife Anne-Marie, frequently called Laure after her younger sister who died a few years before he was born. Laure and Charles began with just a few ouvrées of vines. Caught up in the turmoil of the First World War, Charles was forced to leave the estate to Laure. She continued her husband's work, mobilized at the front, and decided to acquire new plots of land to expand the estate.
By the 1930s, thanks to Mme Noëllat's business acumen, the estate had grown to around 25 hectares of Vosne-Romanée's finest appellations, including the famous Romanée-Saint-Vivant. The jewel in Burgundy's crown, this parcel just below Romanée-Conti produces wines classified by the Grand Crus of the Côte de Nuits, including Romanée-Saint-Vivant, Richebourg and Grands-Echézeaux. A pioneer in its day, Domaine Noëllat began bottling its wines directly on the estate.
This practice, uncommon at the time when wines were most often sold in barrels to négociants from Nuit and Beaune, is what still allows us to find some very old historic bottles from the Charles Noëllat estate.
What's more, the domaine is not aiming for perpetual expansion of its territory, and its philosophy is based on exceptional, perfectly mastered wine quality - through respect for the land, sustainable vine cultivation and traditional oak barrel vinification techniques - rather than quantity.
Charles Noëllat's descendants
Charles and Laure had three children: Félix in 1907, André in 1909 and Geneviève in 1920. Charles died in 1939, quickly followed by his son André in 1941. Félix, the eldest, decided to leave the estate with the vines that belonged to him.
Laure remained alone during the troubled period of the Second World War. She was soon joined by her daughter Geneviève to manage the family vineyard. The family history is perpetuated by the self-sacrifice of these two women, who work hard to ensure the survival of the Noëllat estate.
In 1947, when the Burgundy wine trade was very difficult at the end of the war, Christian Moreau, Géneviève's husband, joined them in the business. He breathed new life into the domaine and made an admirable contribution to the current renaissance and prestige of Charles Noëllat's historic Grand Cru wines.
The fragmented legacy of the Noëllat family
In 1976, Geneviève and Christian's daughter Anne-Marie took over the management of the family estate. Unfortunately, on Geneviève's death in 1987, a series of family disputes between heirs took their toll on the estate.
Several parcels of the vineyard were divided up between heirs. The majority of the remaining plots were sold in 1988 to Lalou Bize Leroy, co-manager of Romanée-Conti and renowned for her rigorous selection of parcels. This is how they became part of today's prestigious Leroy estate.
The Charles Noëllat House today
It was the friendship between Stéphane, Charles' great-grandson and Anne-Marie's son, a passionate Burgundy wine professional, and Antoine, a young wine merchant from Bligny-lès-Beaune, that led to this rebirth in 2013.
Their love of Burgundy terroirs and their great wines, but above all their shared passion for discovering and tasting bottles of "old" vintages from the family collection of Domaine Charles Noëllat, gave them the desire to revive this prestigious name. Both fine connoisseurs, they know how to recognize the complexity, balance and depth of these bottles that bear witness to the flourishing days of the Noëllat estate.
Today, after meticulous research and selection, the Maison Charles Noëllat offers a wide range of bottled wines, both "ready-to-drink" and "old" vintages, direct from the cellars of estates throughout Burgundy: Nuits-Saint-Georges, Meursault, Mercurey, Chablis, Pommard, and more.
While the technical and administrative management of Maison Charles Noëllat is handled by Antoine, all the wines on offer are tasted and selected by the two friends, Antoine and Stéphane, guaranteeing the authenticity of the great Burgundy wines inherited from the family heritage and continuing the Charles Noëllat story.
Some of our exceptional bottles
