A Narrow Band Between Two Monuments
La Grande Rue stretches lengthwise for about 310 metres as it climbs the slope, between 255 and 285 metres in altitude. Its width narrows as one goes up: about a hundred metres at the foot of the slope, some fifty at the top. The gradient follows the same movement, from about 3% at the bottom to 15% at the top. To the north it touches the Romanée-Conti and, higher up, La Romanée; to the south, La Tâche. Few parcels in the world have such a neighbourhood.
Its name comes from the track that borders it to the north and climbs towards the plateau to the west — the vineyard's "grande rue", the one by which one goes up to the vines. The climat is a monopole of Domaine Lamarche, one of the three grand cru monopoles of Vosne-Romanée along with the Romanée-Conti and La Romanée, and one of the four of the Côte de Nuits if the Clos de Tart at Morey-Saint-Denis is added.
The Terroir: The Same Geology as La Tâche
The geological sequence of La Grande Rue is described as similar to that of its neighbour La Tâche: from the bottom to the top of the slope, crinoidal limestone, Marnes à Ostrea acuminata, clayey limestone and then Premeaux limestone. The BIVB moreover describes the two climats together: shallow brown limestone soils in the upper part, deeper in the lower part — rendzinas. The general base is the hard Premeaux limestone, Jurassic in origin, of the order of 175 million years old.
Crossing the slope from bottom to top like its two neighbours, it reproduces the same tiering: lean and stony above, deeper and more clayey below. That is precisely what makes the climat an enigma. Physiographically as geologically, nothing distinguishes it from the Romanée-Conti and La Tâche, between which it is inserted; and yet Lavalle in 1855 and Rodier in 1920 alike refused it the first class they granted its neighbours.
Climate and Exposure
Like the whole Vosne-Romanée slope, La Grande Rue faces east, sometimes slightly east-south-east, in a vineyard whose vines are tiered between 250 and 310 metres. The general climate of the Côte de Nuits is temperate with a semi-continental tendency: pronounced winters, wet and frost-prone springs, hot summers broken by storms, often luminous late seasons that decide the vintage.
The narrowness of the parcel is a constraint of cultivation rather than a climatic handicap: a few rows wide, a gradient that steepens at the top, and a minimum density of 9,000 vines per hectare imposed by the cahier des charges, with spacing between rows that may not exceed 1.25 metres. At this scale, every decision — harvest date, destemming, length of ageing — reads in the wine with no possibility of compensation through a blend.
The Style of the Wines and Their Ageing
La Grande Rue shares the characters of the red grands crus of Vosne: a dark ruby robe that turns carmine with age, a bouquet of small red and black fruits, violet and spice evolving towards undergrowth and truffle, a palate at once clean, powerful and sensual. The cahier des charges imposes ageing at least until 15 June of the year following the harvest, and release to market takes place only after 30 June.
One must nonetheless be honest about the reputation of the cru: for several decades, the wines made by François Lamarche, who died in an accident in 2013, were not judged equal to the terroir. It is his daughter Nicole who has directed the vinifications since 2006, with clear progress in the work in the vineyard as in the cellar. The vintages of the 2010s and after, once ten to fifteen years of ageing have passed, will be the first to say truly what this climat can give. It is probably the only grand cru of the Côte whose potential remains, in part, to be demonstrated.
Why It Remained a Premier Cru for Fifty-Six Years
The history of the property explains everything. Property of the Lamy de Samerey family before the Revolution, La Grande Rue was confiscated as national property and sold to the Marey-Monge family, then passed by marriage to the Liger-Belair family, before falling in 1876 to a branch with no interest in the vine, the Champeaux de Sancy. In 1933, General Denys de Champeaux sold it to Henri Lamarche, of Vosne-Romanée — the same year in which the Liger-Belair estate dispersed La Tâche and La Romanée.
Now, when the grands crus of Vosne-Romanée were approved in 1936, La Grande Rue was classed only as a premier cru. The reason is administrative: the application had to come from the owner, since the climat had only one and no growers' syndicate could carry it. Henri Lamarche did not lodge it. He is said to have considered that the financial gain of grand cru status would not offset the additional taxation, all the more so as his "Romanée Grande Rue, tête de cuvée, monopole" was already selling very well. Half a century of declassification for a management decision.
1984-1992: The Last Promotion on the Côte
It was Marie-Blanche Lamarche, wife of François, son of Henri, who began the approval procedure in August 1984. The INAO first required the agreement of the growers' syndicate of Vosne-Romanée: the vote was carried narrowly, six in favour and five against. A commission of three experts was appointed, the INAO approved the promotion in 1989, and the parcel area was settled by the national committee at its sessions of 8 and 9 November 1990. A parcel of 0.15 hectare at the foot of the slope, in Les Gaudichots, was excluded from the perimeter.
The decree of recognition was finally signed on 2 July 1992 — Monocépage gives the date of 8 July, no doubt that of publication — with authorisation to use the mention grand cru from the 1991 vintage. La Grande Rue thus became the thirty-second grand cru of the Côte, and no climat has been promoted since. One last detail illustrates the mechanics of these boundaries: in 1959, Henri Lamarche and the de Villaine family carried out, under the land consolidation law of 1941, an exchange of small parcels — four to Domaine Lamarche, today within La Grande Rue, seven from Les Gaudichots to the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, today within La Tâche.