Domaine Donatsch

Pinot sorted by plot, not by habit

Healthy grapes come in by vineyard, and Martin Donatsch, winemaker at Domaine Donatsch in Malans, keeps the lots separate before the cellar decides their shape. The habit suits a family estate that has worked in Malans since 1897 and now stands in its fifth generation, with Martin carrying the bench after Thomas Donatsch, the modern-era figure who pushed the house toward Burgundy. Thomas planted Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc in 1975, when those grapes were still legally prohibited in Switzerland, and he brought French oak and the Champagne method into Swiss wine practice early. His collaboration with André Noblet of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti gave the first Pinot Noir “Passion” its Burgundy grammar, using used “La Tâche” barrels and classical technique rather than imitation as ornament. Martin Donatsch adds his own training across Australia, South Africa, Bordeaux, and Spain, then brings the work back to Bündner Herrschaft, where Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Completer, and Pinot Gris all have a place. His role here is not only cellar control. It is the daily sorting of inheritance into usable decisions.

French barrels, three Pinot registers

The estate works about 4.5 hectares across named plots including Spiger, Selvenen, Frassa, Bovel, and Halde, with each site treated for its own soil and microclimate. The method is deliberately close to nature in vineyard and cellar: vine health first, strict selection at harvest, separate pressing by vineyard, then individual cultivation of each wine rather than a house blend that smooths the edges away. In the white program, Chardonnay and Completer ferment in French oak and rest on their lees for 12 months, a Burgundy-derived choice that gives texture without asking the fruit to disappear. The red program speaks through oak percentages with unusual clarity. Pinot Noir “Tradition” uses used barrels and no new oak. Pinot Noir “Passion” takes 30% new oak. Pinot Noir “Unique” can mature in up to 100% new Burgundy barrels. Those figures are not decoration; they are the cellar’s scale, moving from village-weight Pinot to a more concentrated reserve expression while staying inside the same grape and village.

Seven vaulted cellars under the village

The work happens between three modern working rooms and seven centuries-old vaulted cellars, a split that gives the place its particular tempo. In one room, stainless precision and barrel decisions belong to the present shift; below, stone vaults hold the older memory of Malans, with the cool patience that good red wine asks of a cellar. The tasting room life gathers in the family’s 19th-century tavern, Zum Ochsen, where the atmosphere stays conversational and close to the wines rather than staged around them. Outside, vineyards sit around the village in the southernmost part of Bündner Herrschaft, an old wine-growing landscape with patrician buildings and green slopes doing much of the framing. Inside, the serious part remains practical: barrels, lees, separate lots, and the question of which plot earned which vessel.

A local grape kept in the program

Completer gives Domaine Donatsch another register beyond the Pinot and Chardonnay conversation. The rare white grape is native to the region, and here it is not treated as a museum piece; it enters the same disciplined cellar logic as the better-known varieties, with French oak fermentation and 12 months on lees. Martin has said of the region, “Some of the best Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs in the world are produced here,” and Pinot Noir “Passion” and Completer from Malans are part of that range.