Burgundy

Our Chablis has been made for us by Sébastien Dampt. The warm and dry 2022 vintage has given a ripe and fleshy citrus fruit character which combines harmoniously with the classic Chablis notes of iodine and oyster shell. Entirely unoaked, this is perfect as an apéritif or with fresh seafood.

Drink 2024 - 2027

Adam Bruntlett, Senior Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

The nose of our 2022 White Burgundy offers up a bouquet of juicy white stone fruit and subtle, toasty oak. Succulent peach and nectarine flavours fill the palate, tempered by zesty citrus and rounded out with notes of melted butter and a sizzling, iodine finish.

Drink now to 2026

Adam Bruntlett, Senior Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

The excellent Domaine Guyon in Vosne Romanée has been below most people’s radar  Eperhaps because Jean-Pierre Guyon spends as much of his time as possible out in the vineyards, which have been farmed organically since 2006, certified from 2012. The wines are extraordinarily good, yet are priced very sensibly indeed, a winning combination.This range of wines is hugely impressive, from the simple Bourgogne Rouge up to the Grand Crus. Finding high quality Vosne Romanée at this pricing level is a rare thing indeed.

If you order only one red Burgundy this autumn, make it this one. Every facet of stunning Côte d'Or Pinot Noir is present in this creation and the price is as competitive as I have seen this year for any epic-quality wine made from this fabulous grape. Ben Leroux's skills are well-known and here he draws on fruit harvested from od vines in Chorey-lès-Beaune to craft this expressive, silky-red-cherry perfumed wine. It is young, but there is already much to adore, from the pristine clarity of aroma and flavour to the delightfully refreshing finish

Matthew Jukes, Wine of the Week, Money Week (October 2023)

Made in collaboration with Benjamin Leroux, our Bourgogne Côte d’Or comes from old vines planted in the appellation of Chorey-lès-Beaune. The 2022 vintage seamlessly marries explosive red-berry fruit with refreshing acidity and sweet tannins. Spicy floral top notes and a hint of vanilla oak provide further complexity. This would be an excellent match with roasted poultry, grilled meats and soft cheeses.

Drink now to 2027

Adam Bruntlett, Senior Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

Classified as Vin de France. From five parcels of old vines planted between 1902 and 1953. Fresh and mineral, pleasant fruit weight with a slight tropical edge, pure and elegant style, ripe and juicy acidity, just a hint of yeast, crème patissière, good length. Not a very typical Aligoté, but a lovely wine.

From the walled clos surrounding Château de Puligny-Montrachet, this is fast becoming an iconic wine. The deep silt and clay soils help to resist dry conditions. The attack has juicy citrus and white stone-fruit. Pleasing acidity runs right through the wine. The white-flower notes and gentle, lacy texture make this feel like a Puligny in all but name.

Drink 2023 - 2030

Berry Bros. & Rudd

The Gevrey-Chambertin is becoming somewhat totemic for Ben, produced mostly in a beautiful 35hl foudre which Ben feels gives the wine more elegance, finesse and precision than traditional 228-litre barrels. With gorgeous, sweet red cherry fruit, a charming softness and supple tannins, it is hard to disagree with his assessment.

We’ve worked once again with the magical Merlin family to bring you this distinguished and characterful Pouilly-Fuissé. Carefully selected fruit from late-ripening vineyards in Vergisson, Fuissé and Chaintré gives a wine with freshness and energy. This offsets the generous stone and citrus fruits beautifully, combining with subtle oak spice, yielding a complex and layered wine. It pairs beautifully with white meats, seafood and goat’s cheese.

Drink 2024 - 2028

Adam Bruntlett, Senior Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

The fruit here comes from three parcels: the first is high towards Auxey-Duresses, the second in the middle of the Dessus section, and the third is lower, towards Les Cloux. This is another example of the success of the cooler sites in 2018. The bouquet is lifted and expressive, the palate deep and rich, with precision and clarity. Drink 2022-2027.

This is one of the firmer and denser wines in the range, influenced more by the clay, which is more evident here than in the neighbouring Roncière wines. A compact and positive wine that will require a little more patience. Drink 2023-2029.

Jean Grivot, whose name continues to appear on the labels, took over from his father Gaston in 1955 and handed the estate on to his son Étienne in the early 1980s. Étienne, married to Marielle Bize from Savigny, has been through a number of incarnations as winemaker here. When he took over, his father’s style was for gentle, graceful wines which perhaps were a little weak in the lesser vintages. Since then Étienne has found his own voice and made a range of increasingly fine wines. The drive to reduce yields and fine-tune his work in the vineyards and cellar since the mid-2000s continues to enhance quality. The succession to the next generation is now well underway, with Mathilde and Hubert increasingly influential, under their father’s experienced and wise guidance.

Here the decision was to wait for a bit of rain, to get the skins and berries fully ripe. The rain did the trick and the resulting wines are among the best of the Côte this year. Adjectives tumbled from Étienne during the tasting: seductive and precise, glamorous, graphite and saline, luminous and suave. We both agreed we rather liked “resonant E Volumes are up 50 percent but Étienne warned us that the run of short vintages has depleted their reserves, and as such allocations this year will not move up in line.

The vines for this cuvée are 70 years old on average, with some nudging 100 years. The parcels are neighbours to the Grands and Premiers Crus of Griottes, Petite Chapelle, Crais and Champeaux. There is a step up in concentration versus the regular bottling, with greater detail and complexity, and a lovely salivating freshness to finish.

Drink 2024 - 2030

The colour here is a beautiful, brisk pink-purple. The nose is heady with pure red fruit, a little touch of new oak, good concentration. Bright red fruit follows on the palate, stretching out very nicely to the back. This wine is very much about the fruit and the delicacy of the approach. Good length. Drink 2022-2030.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

The Lamarches began on 10th September, picking over six days and realising better yields than in 2014. This year Nicole Lamarche has been able to make exactly the wines which she wants to make, avoiding deep extraction while using around 30 percent whole bunches. Do not expect dark colours and overt concentration, but if your taste is for elegant, floral, eventually ethereal wines then this is the place to be.

Bright, fresh purple with good density; this has a beautiful, pure, racy bouquet. There is a wonderful sweetness of fruit across the palate, with a coating of velvet, then a gentler, graceful finish.

Frédéric notes that the grapes were very healthy in 2014, with a “correct” yield, lower than 2009 but the best since then. In any case, Frédéric aims to stay below 35 hl/ha, so the wines will always have a desirable intensity. This being a given, the style here reflects the light hand of the winemaker, with minimal extraction during vinification.

This wine has a gorgeous bouquet of black berry fruit, and subtle floral and smoky aromas which need coaxing from the glass. It’s always a cool customer, from the relatively cool, windswept Es Chezots. The warm growing season in 2019 adds a touch more padding to the mid-palate, and there’s a fresh, chalky finish.

Drink 2021 - 2027

Berry Bros. & Rudd

This is a classic. Vinous, round and fleshy Pinot Noir. Tons of fruit. Enjoy now and into the next century. The walled vineyard is filled with history, generally considered the pinnacle of 1er Crus in Beaune.

The 2010 Meursault emerges from the glass with notable elegance and class. This is a slightly more restrained, nervous style than fans of Comtes Lafon have become used to over the years. The 2010 is made from parcels in Petit Montagne, Charmes and Narvaux that belong to Dominique Lafon and that were once used in the Comtes Lafon Meursault

Antonio Galloni - eRobertParker.com #202 - Aug 2012

For more than two decades, Thibault Liger-Belair has been following organic and biodynamic practices. He believes that winemaking starts not with the fruit, but with the soil. “We all talk about terroir, but my focus is on the soil and putting what it needs first, EThibaut explains. His wines are pure, focused and desirable.

The 2017 is a blend of Thibault’s five village Chambolle vineyards, but in 2018 he expects to make three cuvées. The vines are at least 50 years old and 40 percent whole-bunch was used. There is lots of pretty, floral fruit here and an intensely silky, seductive texture that is impossible not to love.
Drink 2020-2026.

Thibault continues to keep himself busy, having bought more vineyards in Moulinà-Vent. In the Côte d’Or he waited until 13th September to pick, feeling that the skins were not ripe until that point. He describes the vintage as transparent, where each vineyard’s identity is clearly visible, and one where those with large yields will not be able to hide. In the Beaujolais, hail was again a significant factor, reducing the average yield for those wines he made to an eye-watering 8hl/ha. The damage was so bad that it cost more to pick the grapes than he will make on the wines, but he felt a duty to harvest and vinify the fruit. With careful use of the vibrating sorting table, he was able to carefully select only the clean fruit and has made exceptional wines.

This is the special cuvée from a few rows of vines which produce tiny, ultra-concentrated grapes. A very classy and intense nose offers notes of reduction, while there is incredible density on the palate. Full-bodied and powerful, but with sizzling minerality. Bottled for us exclusively in magnum. Drink 2021-2030.

The 2015 Beaune 1er Cru Celebration is a rich, radiant wine. Sumptuous and expansive on the palate, the 2015 possesses striking inner perfume and fabulous depth. The flavours are dark, bold and incisive in this decidedly potent, somber Beaune 1er Cru from Jadot. Even with all of its natural richness, the 2015 is massively tannic and shut down. I wouldn’t dream of opening a bottle anytime soon. The combination of 19 climats results in a Beaune of unusual complexity and pedigree, butders will have to be patient. The 2015 was only bottled in December 2017.

Drink 2030 - 2055

Brilliant purple in colour with a lively bouquet of vivid dark raspberry. Medium-bodied yet really intense with glowing fruit, really long. A Gevrey to put away for a decade.

Half on alluvial soil and half on sand, the former adding spice and weight. Half raised in foudre and half in tank. Glowing purple and much fresher than Wild Soul. This is really classy with the lovely grip that Julien gets to reinforce his wines.

La Voûte Saint-Vincent is the Desvignes’ calling card: an accessible expression of Morgon made from vines planted on sandy soils. Made entirely without oak, the nose has a beautifully lifted perfume of red berries and peonies. In the mouth, the attack is juicy and saline, a theme that runs through the 2021s. This is already very expressive and charming in youth. This is a moreish and thirst-quenching wine, ideal for the summer months.

Drink 2023 - 2027

One of the vineyards successfully saved by intelligent use of bougies. Paler lemon. Some fresh pears in the bouquet. Splendid balance here, with a real refinement. The joy of a decent yield. Freshens up nicely at the finish, and through to a fine long finish. Pears and light mangoes keep coming back, so this Perrières is showing quite an exotic character. Drink from 2026-2032. - Jasper Morris MW

This is a blend of the lieux-dits of Bel Air and Cercillon, raised mostly in a 1,500-litre foudre, alongside some 350-litre barrels. The soil here is the classic decomposed pink granite that gives Fleurie its bright, floral nose and crunchy, saline tannins. This is medium bodied with surprising structure, without sacrificing any elegance or lift.

Drink 2022 - 2028

Blended with 10% whole bunch, the 2019 Moulin-à-Vent Vieilles Vignes was acutely affected by millerandage and yields were just 8–10hl/ha. This has a well-defined bouquet of blueberry and black plum aromas, the whole bunch neatly interwoven. The palate is well balanced with juicy ripe black fruit, fine acidity and very good structure on the finish. An excellent Moulin-à-Vent.

Drink 2022 - 2030

The 2017 Auxey-Duresses Les Cloux is lovely, delivering an incipiently complex bouquet of pear, woodsmoke, dried white flowers and fresh pastry. It's medium to full-bodied, satiny and textural, built around racy acids and chalky dry extract.

Drink 2022 - 2037

Moulin- à -Vent was badly hailed in 2017, so Olivier did not make a bottling of his single-vineyard La Rochelle, instead blending the fruit into this single bottling. Théo looked after the vinification, de-stemming the fruit and using very gentle extraction to produce a gorgeous, pretty wine with rich red and black cherry, white pepper and a concentrated but fresh feel.

Olivier is taking many steps to counteract the warmer summers and earlier harvests; managing the canopy to protect grapes from sunburn, using late-ripening rootstocks, reducing the amount of new oak he uses to keep the wines feeling fresher, and bringing harvest dates forward to retain acidity. The 2017 crop is around 15 percent down due to the dry summer which stressed the grapes. Picking began on 27th August and Olivier feels the wines are a little richer than 2016, but still with very good balance and well-integrated oak.

Drink 2019 - 2025

From Derrière la Four, Chardannes and Herbues. Again, I sense a little touch of volatile on the nose, but perhaps it is just me today. Pale to mid purple with light rim, elegant wine with an attractive supple character and a particularly long finish.

A ripe and mildly exotic combination offers notes of lychee nut, white peach, spice, jasmine tea and a hint of matchstick character. There is impressive richness to the opulent, round and full-bodied flavors that coat the palate with dry extract on the bitter lemon and slightly warm but well-focused finish. This is a relatively tightly wound 2015 that should age well. - Burghound

Very smart nose with a hint of oak. Lots of race and energy though the oak is just a tad obvious. You'll need to wait quite a while for this.

Drink 2019 - 2028

A brooding yet softly perfumed nose features a pretty mix of both red and dark berry aromas that are just beginning to display some secondary development along with background nuances of spice and exotic tea. The delicious and relatively accessible medium-bodied flavors exude a discreet minerality on the complex, balanced and lingering finish. For my taste this hasn't quite yet arrived at its peak though it's not far away and could easily be enjoyed now. That said I would advise hold this for another 2 to 4 years first. In a word, lovely.
Allen Meadows - burghound.com - Oct 2014

Truly a classic wine despite the sumptuous aspect of the fruit in 2003 there is nonetheless a real sense of elegance. Extraordinary length. Certainly 5 to 10 years, maybe much longer.

Rich, elegant and generous. Lovely fruit. Harmonious and intense. Very good indeed, especially for a village 'appellation controlee'. From 2007.

This is a wine of immense potential but it is rather raw at the moment and will certainly need decanting. Underneath the reductive elements, the fruit is superlatively rich, sumptuous yet also stylish, with dark fruit notes, weight and yet excellent structure.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director

Sylvie Poillot, General Manager, farms the estate’s 42 hectares biodynamically. “We do this to preserve the fertility of soils and to have a perfect balance between the soil and the plant’s health,” she explains. It’s not just the soil health that’s changed: two decades from their conversion to biodynamics, the wines are evolving too: “The wines are more aromatic and more expressive year after year,” she says.

One of the most backward wines in the cellar is pale lemon with some green tints. A fine core of flesh and fruit is evident alongside some other fermentation flavours, with very appley notes behind. The density, integrity, and wealth of flavour are set to be an exceptional wine.

Drink 2019 - 2028

Berry Bros & Rudd

The 2014 Clos St Denis Grand Cru has a very refined, very cohesive, elegant bouquet with red cherry, wild strawberry and rose petals - wonderful. The palate is medium-bodied with chewy tannin on the entry, a thickly layered Clos Saint Denis with dense, ripe raspberry and cranberry fruit, though it just needs a little more detail on the finish if he wants to strut like the Amoureuses.
Neal Martin - 31/12/2015

The 2013 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru les Referts has a poised, tightly wound bouquet with hints of blackberry leaf and licorice suggesting that post-bottling, this might turn out to be spicy little number. Nothing wrong with that! The palate is crisp and taut on the entry with a steeliness coming through with aeration, then it lets go during the second half with citrus lemon, orange zest, freshly squeezed lime and a long minerally finish. This is one of the more mercurial Puligny's from Sauzet - very intriguing.
Neal Martin - 30/12/2014

Bright fresh purple colour. Here there is a trace of a minor reduction but much less severe than the Bourgogne, otherwise a much prettier raspberry fruit with a light cherry touch. Perfectly clean fruit, quite juicy and with good length. Will be a treat. No great acidity.

Drink 2024 - 2028

Jasper Morris MW, InsideBurgundy.com (January 2023)

This Chardonnay is from the south-facing En Daisey vineyard in Magny-lès-Villers. The nose is ripe and complex, with peachy and tropical notes and a generous lick of oak. Despite the wine’s sunny aromatic profile, the palate has a beautiful limpid and mineral character. Like the Aligoté, there’s a distinctly saline, moreish finish.

Drink 2022 - 2025

Berry Bros. & Rudd

Delicate, light colour with faint green notes, this has a very elegant, classy nose, still with a layer of velvet. This is lively, vibrant and very dense, with pure ripe pears. It is very long and has quite a bit of power behind it; there is exceptional potential here.

The sometimes hesitant Caroline Gagnard was confident when showing us her excellent range of 2015s, and rightly so. Poor conditions during flowering have resulted in a small crop in red but somewhat better for white. Caroline began picking on 31 August and thinks that 2015 resembles a mix of 2010, ‘12, and ‘13, describing the wines as being both “glace et sorbet” – i.e., with the fresh precision of a sorbet and the richer texture of ice cream.

Drink 2019 - 2025

Berry Bros. & Rudd

5-10% fermented and aged five to six months in old barrels, the rest in tank and aged therein for 10-12 months.

Light notes of citrus and cedar, more open and expressive than some. With the rounded texture of that oak-fermented portion determining the overall style though there is no oak flavour. Gentle and creamy but still very fresh on the longish finish.

Drink now

Julia Harding MW, JancisRobinson.com (October 2017)

Reduction. Otherwise there is both good verve and a lovely sense of freshness to the relatively big-bodied flavors that possess a velvety texture while delivering excellent depth and length on the dusty, palate coating and moderately austere finale. I like the fine balance as well as the underlying material and this beauty should amply reward 10 to 15 years of bottle age. - Burghound

Tasted blind at the Burgfest tasting in Beaune, the 2013 Nuits Saint-Georges 1er Cru Clos de la Maréchale has a more sophisticated and nuanced nose compared to its peers, red and black fruit here and well-integrated oak.

The palate is smooth in the mouth, supple and quite plush, with some quality new oak that is almost Cathiard-like in style (which appears to have evolved in the last few months).

However, there is fruit to support that here. Give this 2-3 years in bottle; it should turn into a decent Nuits Saint-Georges. Tasted September 2016.

Drink 2018 - 2030

Neil Martin, Wine Advocate (November 2016)

One third whole cluster. Decent solid fruit on the nose here, rugged perhaps. Dark fruit with a redder final touch, a mite of spice, good tannins, slightly taking the fore over acidity, the fruit stays equal to it and continues on well behind.

This is discreet, stylish and exceptionally long with a wonderful heady Vosne perfume and plenty of stuffing on the palate. A delicious wine. Drink 2008-2012.

This is rented from the same owner as the Vignes Franches; vines are also 60 years old. This is the most complex of Dominique’s trio: he considers it the best vineyard in Beaune. The wine is positive and structured, but with finesse, too. The red fruits are expressed more as spice, with a slightly ferric undertone. Drink 2025-2040.

This wine comes from an outlying vineyard, sitting between the railway line and airfield near Nuits-St. Georges. The land is low-lying here but there is clay and limestone. The little parcel of 0.15 ha that Jean Pierre has found has a mix of two-thirds chardonnay and one-third pinot blanc, with 50-year-old vines. The enjoyment is all front-loaded with lots of aromatic character and some exotic fruit notes. The palate gives pleasure although the lowly provenance finally wins out on a shortish finish. Nonetheless, this is exceptional for what it is, and where it comes from.

Drink 2023 - 2026

Berry Bros. & Rudd

All destemmed. Medium deep red, a rather light nose, not much change from the past thus far. More purity on the palate though, with a sweet deep red fruit, a little bit of barrel showing behind. There is a sweet length of fruit, ripe raspberry, quite perfumed and with good length. - Jasper Morris MW

Brian has used two-thirds whole-bunch this year, adding some mid-palate sweetness and reinforcing the chalky tannins of Les Perrières to give added freshness. The high active limestone content in this vineyard gives an energetic and mineral expression of Pinot Noir, with a creamy attack and high-quality chalk tannins on the finish.

Drink 2022 - 2028

From five plots around the vineyard, this is a wine for which Arnaud never includes any whole bunches, feeling the floral profile of the vineyard does not need further embellishment. The wine has the perfect balance of ripe, sunny fruit, gorgeous silken tannins and vibrant acidity. The 70 percent new oak is so wellintegrated that it is unnoticeable.

Self-assured Arnaud Mortet is rightly proud of his capacious, extended cellars on the edge of Gevrey, explaining that the extra space allows him to work with the same precision in the winery as he does in the vineyard. Arnaud is meticulously thorough in the vines, explaining that he loves vintages like 2017, where all that hard work really pays off and gives just reward for the true vigneron. His carefully managed yields have given wines with ripe tannins and good concentration. Overall, he reduced the number of whole bunches as he didn’t want to reduce acidity levels in the wines.

Drink 2022 - 2032

Berry Bros. & Rudd

Initially this just delivers a huge amount of sensual ripeness. Hedonistic, yes, but there is also more grip and structure than the first impression suggest. As on his Clos de Vougeot, Étienne has been working hard here to deliver more finesse, with evident success.  Drink 2025-2032.

Jean Grivot, whose name continues to appear on the labels, took over from his father Gaston in 1955 and handed the estate on to his son Étienne in the early 1980s. Étienne, married to Marielle Bize from Savigny, has been through a number of incarnations as winemaker here. When he took over, his father’s style was for gentle, graceful wines which perhaps were a little weak in the lesser vintages. Since then Étienne has found his own voice and made a range of increasingly fine wines. The drive to reduce yields and fine-tune his work in the vineyards and cellar since the mid-2000s continues to enhance quality. The succession to the next generation is now well underway, with Mathilde and Hubert increasingly influential, under their father’s experienced and wise guidance.

Here the decision was to wait for a bit of rain, to get the skins and berries fully ripe. The rain did the trick and the resulting wines are among the best of the Côte this year. Adjectives tumbled from Étienne during the tasting: seductive and precise, glamorous, graphite and saline, luminous and suave. We both agreed we rather liked “resonant”. Volumes are up 50 percent but Étienne warned us that the run of short vintages has depleted their reserves, and  as such allocations this year will not  move up in line.

Mossy nose with autumn leaves. Sweet start. Good freshness on the palate despite the compost elements on the nose. Firm tannins. Quite serious with a definite future. - Jancis Robinson

Perfumed and attractive, this is a ‘95 that is ready to sit up and take notice. Very graceful lines, still fresh behind but the fruit is maturing nicely. Just getting there.
(Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director)

Nicolas Potel, took his first steps as winemaker in the family Estate in Volnay, Le Domaine de la Pousse d’Or. He established his own negoce operation in 1996 , followed by Maison Potel-Aviron in Beaujolais region in 2000 and his efforts culminated in his own Estate, Domaine de Bellene in 2005, with 15 ha of organically-farmed vines in Côte de Beaune.

In 2008, after leaving the SAS Nicolas Potel company, Nicolas Potel launched a new, "Haute Couture"-style negociant business called "Maison Roche de Bellene" which focuses on offering the rare and fine cuvées.

The Bellene range encompasses wines from the Côte de Nuits, and has the widest selection of Grand Crus from Burgundy, as well as a number of prestige 1er Cru cuvées such as Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses, Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Les Combottes.

Recently , Nicolas Potel introduced a range of very rare older vintages, under the name "Collection Bellenum".
These exceptional wines, dating back from 1959 are the result of a strict selection of old vintages originating from the cellars of some of the most acclaimed wine producers in Burgundy.

Dominique rents this from the same owner as Vignes Franches, and the vines are also 60 years old. Arguably Beaune’s best vineyard, this has an extra layer of dark, meaty richness alongside the usual bright, floral notes.

Drink 2024 - 2031

A fresh and ripe nose features notes of both red and dark cherry that are trimmed in floral, herbal tea and wood hints. The agreeably textured and rich flavors are not super-dense though neither are they light, all wrapped in a juicy, pliant, refreshing and ever-so-mildly warm finale. This youthfully austere effort offers good quality and is a wine that should drink reasonably well young if that's your preference. - Wine Advocate

The 2019 Bourgogne Chardonnay is a medium to full-bodied, round and fleshy wine evocative of peach, fresh mint, pastry cream and vanilla pod. Open and demonstrative, it will drink well young. - Robert Parker

There is enough reduction to notice though not so much as to completely dominate the floral-suffused nose. This also possesses relatively fine-grained tannins though there is notably more size, weight and power as well as a bit more complexity to the mineral-driven and impeccably well-balanced finish that is both explosive and palate staining. This is most impressive as it manages to deliver stunning intensity and depth of material without any undue heaviness. Note however that this is one very structured wine that will require a lengthy stay in a cool cellar to arrive at its full peak.

Allen Meadows - burghound.com - Jan 2015

A very late malolactic fermentation  Efinishing only on 17th September, allowing extended time on lees  Ehas given this wine a fabulous texture. Aged in new (50 percent) and second-fill barrels, this is benchmark Vosne, with expressive aromas and a nugget of fruit at its core. Just 13 barrels were made. Drink 2020-2027.
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer

Sylvain Cathiard’s grandfather, a foundling from Savoie, came to work in Vosne-Romanée, subsequently buying a few parcels of vineyards for himself. His son André Cathiard began to bottle some of the crop. In due course Sylvain began work with his father but then separated to start his own small domaine, until, on his father’s retirement in 1995, Sylvain could take back the family vineyards on a renting agreement. He has now passed the domaine on to his son Sébastien and a spacious new cellar has been constructed. There is a sense of frustration about Sébastien Cathiard this year. Of course, the loss of so much fruit sets the tone, but he also had to take emergency action to control the aggressive mildew, losing his organic status in the process. Who can blame him? Thus he states a preference for 2015, a significantly easier vintage and one for the long-term, but there are still some very notable wines here. The vintage began on 28th September and was over in three days, as the small berries on the frosted vines had caught up after the welcome September rains. He describes the year as gourmand, balanced and pure.

There is both good freshness and reasonably good typicity to the white orchard fruit scents that are laced with soft citrus nuances. The vibrant and nicely concentrated medium weight flavors possess a caressing and succulent mouthfeel while delivering fine depth and persistence though there is a bit of perceptible backend warmth. This is a quality Petit Chablis that could be enjoyed young or cellared for a few years first.

Drink 2023+

Burghound (Nov 2020)

This wine receives extra time in barrel compared to the Meursaults. A little touch of menthol, very good energy, the stony quality is certainly there. It is very backward, but will be all there. Superb persistence and a tangy mineral feel at the back, all enrobed in judicious oak.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

Though there are variations from one vineyard to another, Patrick has made about half a crop in 2012. He pressed the grapes very gently in 2012 to avoid mashing the skins and has thus managed to retain elegance in wines which are naturally full of power. His skills in the cellar have once again paid handsome dividends. A beautiful range of wines in 2012.

Firm reduction knocks down the underlying fruit at present. There is more size and power to the equally mineral-driven flavors that aren't especially dense, though neither are they dilute, while offering outstanding depth and persistence on the notably firm finale. Patience suggested.

Drink 2034+

Burghound (Apr 2019)

A cool, pure and airy nose reluctantly expresses notes of red cherry and whiffs of spice, humus and freshly turned earth. There is good power to the succulent and enveloping medium weight plus flavors that offer even better minerality if, somewhat surprisingly, a bit less concentration, on the youthfully austere and mildly awkward finish as there is just enough dryness to mention. This may well come together as the supporting tannins seem ripe but that is not a certainty.

Drink 2029+

Burghound (Jan 2019)