Domaine Francois Lamarche

François Lamarche was the 5th generation of Lamarche to farm the domaine’s vines in Vosne-Romanée. The domaine has roots to 1797 but on the maternal side the family go back as far as 1740 in the village. Now a 6th generation is taking over, ‘generation six’ are Nathalie who responsible for ‘commercialisation’ and her cousin Nicole who takes care of the vini/viti-cultural aspects. Although most commentators suggest this to be a domaine on an upward swing of quality, a majority were been far from restrained in their criticism of the quality of the domaine’s wines from the 1970s right through to the 1990s. If the family Lamarche were based in Nuits, you would hear little from the critics, but the name-plate vineyard of the domaine is their 1.65 hectare monopoly of the vines called called La Grande Rue, and these vines sit between the ‘rock’ that is Romanée-Conti, and the ‘hard place’ that is La Tâche.


An older generation pointed to wonderful wines from the 1930s to the 1970s, and it seems that any neglect began during the later years of (generation 4) Henri Lamarche’s life (b. 1903, d.1985), when neighbours were wont to point to insufficiently tended vines. There was also an urban myth about the planting of inferior vines in La Grande Rue, the source of which was an article in a French publication; ‘Cuisine et vins de France‘ (1987). The article was published with particularly galling timing for the family as the application for the raising of La Grande Rue to grand cru status was pending. Domaine Lamarche hired a vine expert in order to prove that there was no ‘pinot droit’ (a higher yielding clone now out of favour, but with significant plantings in the 1960s) and a lawyer to force the issue. The magazine subsequently printed both a retraction and an apology – it is, however, the nature of things that the article is remembered more than the apology. If the domaine’s average vine age figures are correct, however, then much of the domaine was replanted in the early 1970s, which would not have gone hand in hand with having the best quality.