Last week we finally met Philippe Cheron, winemaker at the newly created Domaine du Couvent. The new domaine combines the holdings of the shuttered Domaine des Varoilles and Cheron’s family vineyards, including several plots his grandfather planted in the 1930s. It’s a new lineup with a new label, but with a highly experienced winemaker, and vineyard holdings steeped in history.
Something that often strikes us when we visit France is the expanded sense of time. The countryside is littered with twelfth century chateaux, Roman era churches, even remains of neolithic settlements. Vignerons in particular have an expanded time horizon – the vines they plant today may not be mature until their children are grown; Champagne producers lay down their vintage…
The changing climate has caused dramatic shifts amid the tiny microclimates of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. In a region where a few meters makes the difference between four-figure Grand Cru and $60 village, a couple degrees of warmer weather can have profound effect.
Yesterday morning we tasted through Michel Gros’s 2020 vintage from barrel. It’s a terrific year, with both tremendous density and great energy. Hot, dry growing seasons have become the norm in Burgundy, and while they still make life difficult for the growers, the vignerons here begun to adapt their practices in the vines and the cellar. The resulting wines are…
We like to judge a vigneron’s talent by his simplest wine. Great wines from great terroir of course involve a steady winemaker as guide, but the material undoubtedly provides a head start. With humble fruit from an unsung plot of regional-level vines, winemaking skill comes even more into play.
When we lived near Cluny in Burgundy more than twenty years ago, we stumbled upon a nearby producer in Viré-Clessé. The young couple who owned it tended their vineyards and made their wine according to organic and biodynamic principles – not at all the norm back then – and their work opened our eyes to the quality possible in the…
The white Burgundies of the Maconnais are some of our favorite expressions of Chardonnay. Grown in a region known as “la France Profonde” (“deep France”), the best cuvées are unoaked, mouthfilling, vibrant, and crisp.
Vincent Ravaut’s Bourgogne blanc has become a favorite among readers in recent years. He makes excellent village-level Ladoix blanc and magnificent (and rare) Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru. But his humble Bourgogne blanc punches way above its weight, particularly this year.
Our allocations of the 2020 Burgundies all follow the same trend: prices up, quantities down. A tiny crop (and even smaller 2021 vintage next in the pipeline) has forced winemakers to raise their prices, and truthfully we can hardly blame them – the wine has never been better, demand has never been stronger, and it costs about the same to…
New winemakers in Burgundy are hard to come by. It’s a tiny region, and between small harvests, ever increasing demand, and well-established importers, it can seem there’s nothing new to discover. We’re heading back for a visit next month, and our preparations for prospecting have been unpromising to say the least.
By Burgundy standards, Nuits-St-Georges is an enormous appellation, stretching nearly four miles end to end. The mineral content in the soil varies widely across the town, and Nuits can best be thought of as three distinct districts: north, middle and south. The northern part that borders Vosne is the most elegant, the middle the boldest and most powerful, and the…
Michel Prunier and his daughter Estelle make delicious, traditional Burgundies in Auxey-Duresses. In some vintages Prunier’s reds occupy the lightweight end of the spectrum, requiring some time and a careful food pairing. But in 2018 all they need is a corkscrew and a glass.
Maranges is the Côte d’Or’s forgotten appellation. In the past it was known for its unrefined, tannic wines -- Burgundians used to call it “le medecin” (the doctor) because some secretly blended it into thinner Côte d’Or reds to bulk up weak vintages.
Tucked away in a valley off to the west of the Côte d’Or, Auxey-Duresses is often passed over for famous nearby names such as Meursault and Volnay. But hot summers have turned these towns on the margins of ripeness into sources for real value.
Winemaker Gilbert Hammel is a softspoken man making red Burgundies that are anything but. The town of Gevrey-Chambertin typically produces bold, masculine wine, and the Varoilles style channels this terroir perfectly. Hammel’s “Clos du Meix des Ouches” is a village level cuvée that drinks more like a premier cru. It’s surrounded by an old wall, […]