Domaine Michel-Andreotti

We first met Arlette Michel and her father in 1995. We had a most enjoyable tasting, we liked the wine - and the people - so we bought numerous samples to bring home for re-appraisal in the cold light of an English winter. The fact that some of the bottles were not labelled was not a problem, Monsieur Michel put the labels loose in the box. These samples we carefully stored in our cellars. Time passed and we forgot about our Montagny until, by chance, we unearthed the box with the unlabelled wines. We tasted them right away, and they were delicious - the only problem being that the labels did not have the vintage on them and neither did the cork. We guessed at 1993, since we could remember visiting in the spring of '95 and the '94 would still have been in cuve. So, the only thing to do was to go back and see if they could remember!

When we re-visited we found that Monsieur Michel had retired and the domaine was now run by Arlette and her husband Philippe. Everything was as neat and tidy as before, the welcome was even warmer and the wines were just as good. But could they tell us what we had bought two years previously? "Of course," said Arlette, heading for the filing cabinet in the corner, from which she extracted a slim document file that had a 3D Wines' business card stapled to the outside. Inside was a note of the exact day of our visit - May 23rd 1995 - and a complete list of what we had tasted and what we had bought! Not only did they make excellent wine and were very welcoming - but their administration was superb. We asked them there and then whether they would like to join the 3D Wines 'club'.