Domaine de la Ville de Morges

Chasselas read close to the vat

Jean-François Crausaz tastes Chasselas close to the vat as winemaker at Domaine de la Ville de Morges in Morges, reading the wine before any public language is put around it. His route into this station runs through Maison Bolle, where he first held the practical title of master cellarer and now directs the house that operates the city-owned estate. The work suits a cellar-trained maker: decisions made in sequence, with attention on fruit, fermentation, vessel, and the discipline of not overhandling what the vineyard has already given.

The property belongs to the Ville de Morges, whose vineyard ownership reaches back to 1547, while Maison Bolle & Cie has managed viticulture, bottling, and commercialization since 2020. Crausaz carries that arrangement from the cellar side, with Chasselas as the through-line of his work across addresses. He also makes wine at Domaine du Plessis in Vufflens-le-Château: “We are starting a one-year trial period”; the municipal vineyard above Lake Geneva has a history that would be heavy if the wines were asked to perform it. Crausaz keeps the emphasis on method.

Fifteen hectares under organic discipline

The estate farms 15 hectares of hillside vines in La Côte AOC, planted to 10 grape varieties: Chasselas, Doral, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Gamay, Garanoir, Gamaret, Galotta, and Servagnin. The whole vineyard has been converted to Bio Suisse Bourgeon organic viticulture since 2020, and the fruit stays estate-grown. Harvests are manual, which matters here less as romance than as selection, because the natural line asks the cellar to begin with clean, articulate grapes.

La Sélection Nature follows the stricter gesture. Fermentation starts spontaneously from the estate’s own pied de cuve, with no added SO₂ and no preservatives. The cellar cleans mechanically with water and steam, and the natural wines age in wood. Around 20 cuvées move through the program, divided among Les Cuvées, La Sélection Nature, Les Spécialités, and Les Doux et Mousseux. That range lets Crausaz keep Chasselas in its Vaud register while giving Pinot Noir, Gamay, Swiss crosses, sweet wines, and sparkling wines their own place in the cellar. The method is not a costume of rusticity. It is a set of constraints, repeated vintage after vintage, until the wine has fewer places to hide.

A caveau facing the lake slopes

The tasting room stays close to the cellar rather than to spectacle. The caveau de dégustation sits on the property, with the vineyards rising on slopes above town and Lake Geneva holding the light below them. In the room, the work arrives by range and by bottle: a Chasselas from the regional line, a natural cuvée with its pied de cuve origin, a red built from Gamaret, Garanoir, or Gamay. Conversation can stay at cellar volume because the place is built for tasting, not performance.

The setting helps explain the wines without turning into scenery. Gravelly parcels closer to the lake give one kind of finesse; heavier soils higher on the slope give another kind of structure. The Jura protects, the lake moderates, and the cellar has to answer to both. If there is a next movement to hold in view, it is already inside the program: Crausaz continuing to test organic fruit, spontaneous ferments, and wood against the same Lake Geneva slopes and the same Chasselas.