Côte d'Or
Reading this, you will hopefully be as pleased as us to hear that the 2023 whites across the Côte de Beaune (Meursault, Puligny, Chassagne and Saint Aubin as a particular focus) were both relatively bountiful (if not excessively so) and very good, with some even making the ‘outstanding’ category.
Chardonnay generally copes well with higher yields and 2023 has produced a set of wines which are, if you were to consider ripeness mathematically, a very low standard deviation – they are all on the ever so slightly riper end of perfectly balanced, so you get some of those wonderful rich or even tropical flavours but without sacrificing the freshness of the wines.
There is a smashing drinkability about them and whilst the top wines will go for the long haul, there is simply no need to sit on them for that long.
The yields in 2024 were generally less severely cut than than the Côte de Nuits or Chablis, but are still 30-40% down from a 'normal' harvest, so the pressure on stocks remains critical.
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Domaine Remy & Fils
A family domaine that extends back five generations to 1853, but which Joël has modernised considerably over the past twenty years, installing new fermentation and ageing equipment. Over the years his vinifications have changed, and the wines have a lot more immediacy and precision. The quality of fruit is not in doubt, as lovers of his Bourgogne Rouge from year to year will attest, and a lot of work in the vineyard contributes to this, including leaf-thinning towards the end of the growing season. In the winery he has installed a vibrating sorting table, and the only filtering is by a lens filter at very low pressure to avoid de-naturing the wines. All offer quite striking value.
In 2016 Joël was joined full-time by both his children, Maxime and Manon. There is a renewed air of excitement and ambition here. They are moving to slightly longer élevages over eighteen months, with four to five months in cuve at the end.
Joel hunts finesse and has been working on tannin structure for years. Picking at right time, using his vertical press - 'artisanal perhaps' says Joel but you can control it so closely - very gentle extraction is possible. Less Pigeage too. It's clear these efforts are all paying off!
2023 HAUTES CÔTES DE BEAUNE Blanc Domaine Remy & Fils
A new wine this year for Joel and his family. This comes from 2 plots one in Nantoux beyond Pommard and one in Pernand Vergelesses. Nice sweet fruit on the nose. Pineapple and sweet stone fruit.A new wine this year for Joel and his family. This comes from 2 plots one in Nantoux beyond Pommard and one in Pernand Vergelesses. Nice sweet fruit on the nose. Pineapple and sweet stone fruit. Follows to the palate. Good freshness though catches this before it gets too broad - nice weight and gentle rub. L&S (Nov 2024)
In Bond
Domaine Berthelemot
Domaine Berthelemot is the creation of Brigitte Berthelemot, who is, by all accounts, something of a tour de force. Brigitte has, in a very short space of time (starting in 2006), knocked together a domaine of 15 hectares, spread over 45 parcels.
The basis of this spread was Domaine Garaudet in Pommard, but then they also took over Domaine Allexant. Charles Allexant was a bouilleur de cru (distiller of marc) who went round the villages plying his trade and who knew the Côte well, and also the vignerons for whom he distilled. In 1957 he bought a first vineyard in Volnay, and others followed, so that he built up a patchwork from Gevrey to the Côte Chalonnaise.
The final piece of the jigsaw was the purchase of Domaine Marey in Pernand.
The vinification is overseen by Brigitte's son Thomas, after he worked alongside cellarmaster Marc Cugney (who has now retired) for a number of years. The reds are picked into small cases in which they are transported to the winery - and vinified in stainless steel after a 4 day cold maceration. Extraction is gentle and mostly by remontage. The wines then go into barrel with a maximum of 20% new wood. The whites are pressed, and after a short débourbage, are put in tank, where they begin their fermentation. Once the fermentation is under way, they are moved to barrel, with a maximum of 25% new wood.
The domaine is certified organic since the 2021 vintage
Domaine de la Choupette
The Gutrin brothers' domaine was created when the twins joined forces in 1992 - it's based in the middle of Santenay, with Jean-Christophe in charge of the vines and Philippe in the winery. Perrine Gutrin runs the 'front of house'. They have vineyards in Puligny (three hectares), Chassagne (half a hectare) Maranges (one hectare) and Santenay (seven and a half hectares) - eight hectares of red and four of white in all. The vineyards are worked traditionally with ploughing rather than chemicals for weed control and to encourage the roots to go deeper. Yields are initially controlled at the pruning and with de-budding, and finally a green harvest as necessary. The domaine is certified HVE 3 ('High Environmental Value') from the 2022 harvest.
Whites are classically made with élevage in barrel for a year with up to half new wood. They are playing with the specification of the barrels, looking for a 'discreet toast'.
The reds are de-stemmed and macerated cold for a week before the three week fermentation at around 28C, then the temperature is allowed to rise to around 33C to stabilise colour and tannins. This gentle vinification is aimed at making fruit-forward wines, which are then aged in barrel for twelve to eighteen months using a mix of new and up to three-year-old barrels.
Domaine Fernand & Laurent Pillot
The origins of the Pillot family in Chassagne can be traced back to the eighteenth century, when they seem to have been coopers more than vignerons. In the nineteenth century they abandoned barrel-making in favour of enlarging the property in Chassagne. Fernand and Laurent, who is the fourth generation, added to it again in 1992, and then in 2001 Laurent's wife Marie-Anne inherited half of her family's property, the Pommard domaine of Pothier-Rieusset, and Laurent and his father bought the other half. The domaine now stands at 14.5 hectares of vines across almost the whole length of the Côte de Beaune from Santenay to Beaune.
The Domaine is worked according to organic principles and is ploughed – no chemical weedkillers are used. They have also been members of the Dephy-ECO-phyto group, which works to reduce the number of treatments using copper sulphate, since 2012. In 2021 they began the process of organic certification.
Laurent has always managed to pack in a lot alongside his running of the vineyard. He has his own plane which he flies to all corners of France, used keep and hunts hawks, and conducts the Chassagne brass band as well as dabbling in Mayoral duties - on top of being a father of three, Anaïs, Adrien and Eugène. They are all mad about the alps and disappear up the mountains at regular intervals.
Laurent's eldest son Adrien has been travelling the world making wine all over the place for the last few years having completed his training in Beaune. Bringing back lessons learnt in Australia, South Africa and California (and from a stint at Lea & Sandeman). During harvest Adrien is now the one in the winery while Laurent takes charge of the picking team. The wines have long been L&S favourites in both red and white - they represent excellent value, and they age very well too, despite being attractive young. The whites are precise and pure, and not lacking for body and generosity, while the reds are velvety and juicy, beautifully balanced even if drunk young on their expressive Pinot fruit. The domaine was rightfully heralded in Decanter Magazine as 'an address that deserves to be better-known'. Great value and real pleasure across their range.
We discussed Adrien's wish to do a longer élevage for the whites, but the problem that if you take the wines out of barrel that means keeping them in vats with floating tops, and they are not mad about the practicality of that. For now most are bottled after a year, but the Vide Bourse and Grandes Ruchottes will stay in barrel until the spring. They use little SO2 to begin with, gradually stabilising the levels once the wines are back in tank, and still finishing with low levels. They like ripe grapes: 'there's a kind of fashion to be the first to pick in Burgundy - they want to keep the freshness but all they get is acidity and tannin'. For the reds, they don't do massive extraction - 3 pigeages only in the middle of the fermentation, but they do a lot of pump-overs.
Adrien is now in the winery and Laurent orchestrates the picking. Adrien has already made some changes to the vinification and the quality here taking another step up.
Domaine Joseph Colin
Joseph Colin is one of the four children of Marc Colin (the others being Pierre-Yves, Damien and Caroline), who had a large domaine with vines in Saint Aubin, Santenay, Chassagne and Puligny. Pierre-Yves left the family domaine in 2005 and after that Joseph was an important member of the team there. After making a token 1800 or so bottles on his own account in 2016, he started in earnest with 2017, with seven hectares of vines, from which he makes an astonishing nineteen different cuvées.
Most of the vines he has in Saint Aubin are young, but by limiting bunches to six or seven per vine, he manages to control the yields. With plenty of time to learn his craft at Domaine Marc Colin, he has developed into a confident winemaker. He experimented with sulphur levels in the wines at the family domaine, so coming to his current view that the wines should be left the longest time possible without added S02, perhaps adding some at racking, but if he feels there's still enough C02 after racking, he will not even add any at that stage, so as to develop 'wine at its purest', but he is keen to say also that he has no standard recipe - he will adapt to each wine. In 2020 he again used no S02 until just before bottling, but he's clear that if there's some botrytis, for example, he will add it earlier. Generally nothing is either fined or filtered. He is very aware of biodynamics, but says that the tides are more important than just the phase of the moon, and that he places less importance on whether it's a fruit or flower day - for him the important thing is not to manipulate a wine when it's tasting good - you must do it when it's not showing well.
Joseph is a very bright new prospect for lovers of precise, pure white Burgundies with fresh acidity and crystalline definition.
Domaine Thomas-Collardot
Jacqueline Collardot and her son Matthieu own and run this exciting 'micro-domaine' in the heart of Puligny-Montrachet. Matthieu completed his studies in 2019 and joined Jacqueline permanently, just in time for the harvest. Now they are working together we look forward to a slightly bigger production - as while she worked alone she was limited to what she could achieve on her own, with excess grapes being sold on.
At only 2.5ha, this is an artisan project, allowing them to give unrivalled time and care to every parcel she has. Jacqueline inherited these vineyards from her father’s Domaine Thomas Pierre in 2010 after he retired and is slowly raising the profile with her incredible care and attention. Although there may not be much quantity - the quality is impeccable. These are classically shaped, bright wines that express their various Puligny terroirs perfectly.
From 2020 the domaine is now organically certified. They still use their horse to plough the vineyards - but going forward, they are planning on doing this only every two years as they worry the process is a little rough on the soil to be done every season. Huge thought has recently gone into the élevage too. The time in barrel has been reduced to just 12 months rather than the 18-24 they were doing previously - this coincides with a study they were doing of 5 different coopers to try and ascertain which plots work best with which barrels. They have begun to introduce larger barrels of 350l - and to have more new wood in the cellar.
Domaine Henri Germain
Jean-François Germain was joined in 2018 by his daughter Lucie - who is now helping to run this small (7ha) domaine.
The Chassagne vineyards came through his mother, a Pillot, and Jean-François is married to François Jobard's daughter (sister of Antoine), so they are quite intertwined with some of our other producers. The Poruzots comes from the rows next to Remi Jobard's. In terms of winemaking the Germains are always happy to let nature take its course, and in the vineyards they follow as natural a system of viticulture as possible (organic, not certified).
These are concentrated, tightly wound wines from one of Burgundy's coldest cellars. Alcoholic fermentations can take months and the malolactics are often late, so they have always gone for long élevage in old barrels, always for two winters, and the Premiers Crus usually for 22 months. Slow to develop, they show wonderful crystalline purity. New wood is used very sparingly, just to replace barrels sold when they get to ten years old.
Domaine Rémi Jobard
Rémi has been making small qualitative changes ever since he took over here. The entire vineyard is cordon-pruned, so yields are naturally limited. There has been no use of fertiliser since 1994, and the vineyard is grassed-over to encourage the vine roots to go deep. The domaine has been certified organic from 2008. He says that the two most important things are the absence of weedkiller (and thus the necessity to plough, which cuts any surface roots and makes the vine go deeper) and not adding any fertiliser which again makes the roots go deeper to find nutrients.Rémi has two vast presses, to enable him to press very slowly over six hours, and this has resulted in a big jump in finesse. The élevage now lasts nearly fifteen months, so as to allow the wines to develop slowly and to avoid fining. As a result these are wines which take a moment to show, but which reward the patient with complexity and great depth of flavour.
Rémi made a move from traditional barrels to foudres made of a mix of French, Austrian and Slavonian oak, constructed by Austrian cooper Stockinger, and having added a new one (or two) each year, there's barely a normal barrel left. He likes the way the wines develop in these large volumes, in which the 'oaking' effect is minimised.
We are again very excited about Rémi's two red wines this year, both of which are excellent.
Jean-Marc Boillot
Jean-Marc's daughter Lydie and son-in-law François Alzingre have worked alongside him and effectively run the domaine, and are now being joined by their children. Alongside the wines from the family's own vineyards, They also run a successful négociant business, vinifying wines from the Côte Chalonnaise with huge aplomb. In Montagny in particular, the wine is the best we have found in the appellation, and remarkably consistent from year to year.
Domaine Jean-Marc Boillot
Jean-Marc Boillot left the family domaine to be winemaker to Olivier Leflaive for five years. Then from his maternal grandfather Étienne Sauzet he inherited much of the vineyard of the old Domaine Sauzet, in some of the best vineyards of Puligny. With this holding and others from his paternal side, he set up his own business, and he has been responsible for over 50 vintages. His daughter Lydie and son-in-law François Alzingre have worked alongside him and effectively run the domaine, and are now being joined by their children.
With the belief that a vine reaches its full potential when 40 years old, the team look after their old vines carefully, and those in La Garenne and Combettes are still those planted by J-M's grandfather Étienne Sauzet. Vines are planted to a minimum of 12000 vines per hectare, and the vineyard worked by ploughing to encourage the plants to have deep roots. They are trimmed quite high at 1.2m to leave lots of leaves for photosynthesis, and also to shade the bunches from direct sun exposure which might burn them.
Great care is taken over the date of harvest, with careful controls of ripeness made over a period of three weeks prior to starting. The grapes are harvested manually, and placed in small cases for transport to the winery, where they are pressed as whole bunches. The juice is allowed to settle out in tank and then transferred to barrel for fermentation with the fine lees. Batonnage once a week during the 11 months of barrel-aging helps the wines to feed and fatten on the lees. They normally use between 25 and 30% new wood. The domaine makes wines that show well young, with sometimes citrussy, sometimes with complex exotic fruit aromas, always with the core of minerality, and they age well too.
Domaine Comte Armand
A domaine totalling nine hectares, of which the most important part is a magnificent five hectare monopole of the Pommard Premier Cru Clos des Epeneaux, which was put together by Nicolas Marey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (along with the DRC Romanée Saint Vivant 'Marey-Monge'). These vineyards were all sold, except for the Clos (it now been enclosed by a wall), which came to Jean-François Armand as a dowry when he married Nicolas' daughter in 1826. The Volnay vineyards were added in 1994, followed by parcels in Auxey Duresses.
The current Comte Armand is a lawyer living in Paris, but very supportive of the régisseurs who have looked after this domaine for the thirty years or so that L&S have been buying here. The 1980 vintage, made by one of the many Rossignols of Volnay who was in charge at the time, was for us a great introduction to the possibilities of the great Clos des Epeneaux vineyard. Then came the era of Pascal Marchand, a young Quebecois who came to do a harvest with Domaine Bruno Clair and just never left. He began a period of radical restructuring and the introduction of organic and then biodynamic farming, while making very dark, dense and long-lived wines. Benjamin Leroux, hugely respected amongst growers who approach things from an organic or biodynamic point of view, then took over, and refined this approach and changed the way the parcels of vines are divided up for harvesting, paying less attention to just the age of the vines, and more to the underlying soil types. Claude Bourguignon was employed to provide a full geological survey of the Clos as the basis for this. Under Benjamin the wines of the Clos gained in finesse and precision, while still having the depth and richness expected of a great Pommard.
Both Pascal and Benjamin were keen to expand beyond the confines of the Clos, and the Domaine also has vines in Volnay, and, a particular enthusiasm of both Pascal and Benjamin, in Auxey Duresses, where they are convinced of the great potential of some of this village's undervalued and neglected terroirs. Paul Zinetti, who had worked with Ben for four years, took over in 2014.
The vineyard is cultivated organically (ECOCERT certified) and biodynamically. The grapes are entirely de-stemmed, but left intact, for a five to eight-day cold maceration before the fermentation, which lasts five to ten days, and then the wine remains in the fermenters for between three and fifteen days, depending on the vintage. In most years, the total time with skin contact will be around four weeks, which is longer than most. The wines will then be aged in barrel for between eighteen and twenty-four months, with new wood limited to 30% for the wine from the old vines of the Clos, down to none at all for the village wines.
Paul said from the outset that he wanted to make a less tannic wine in the Clos, and one which is more about aromatic length. In this he is continuing the route that Ben was following, but perhaps taking it even further.
Domaine Derey Frères
Domaine Derey Frères has its cellar in the village of Couchey, between Marsannay and Fixin. The family's vigneron background can be traced back to 1650, but it was called Derey Frères only from the 1950s, with the establishment of the domaine as it is now when brothers Albert and Maurice worked together. Fifth generation Pierre Derey, while keeping an eye on things, has ceded to the this sixth generation, his sons Maxime, Romain and Pierre-Marie, who seem to work well as a team in vineyard and cellar - so the domaine's name has never been more appropriate.
The brothers have 20 hectares of vines, spread from the edge of Dijon to Gevrey Chambertin. There are Bourgogne Rouges from the historic vineyards of the Dukes of Burgundy which are relics of the historic Dijon vineyards, now mostly part of the town. The core of the domaine could be said to be the ten hectares in Marsannay, while the vineyards in Fixin and Gevrey Chambertin complete the range.
In the vineyard the brothers have turned the whole domaine into organic conversion - the first certified wines will be from the 2023 harvest. Winemaker Maxime has experimented with some whole bunches, ranging from 20% top 100%, quite quick alcoholic fermentations, with or without the addition of sulphites, and usually with indigenous yeasts, but with no fixed recipe - it all depends on the year. The wines are then aged for between 12 and 18 months with an average of 25% new barrels (up to 40% in the top wines).
The result is wines which they say are in the image of the three brothers - 'instinctive, frank and spontaneous', with immediate pleasure from a juicy fruit which dominates, but which will not prevent the wines from aging well.
Domaine Faiveley
The Faiveley family are the largest vineyard owners in Burgundy, owning around 120ha, spread across the Côte de Nuits, Beaune and Chalonnaise and encompassing everything from generic Bourgogne up to the grandest of Grand Crus. Their own holdings supply the grapes for 5 out of every 6 bottles made by Faiveley, the balance being bought in from carefully selected contract growers.
Faiveley has been more and more impressive in recent years, and the combination of winemaker Jérôme Flous and an entirely new winery are taking them onwards and upwards year after year.
Joseph Drouhin
Despite the size of their vineyard holding, not all Drouhin's wines come from their own domaine, but most of the other wines do come from long-term contracts, such as exists with the Marquis de Laguiche wines. In all but name these wines are 'Domaine' wines, and the vineyards are cared for and the wines vinified with exactly the same care.
Domaine Joseph Drouhin
Joseph Drouhin, founded in 1880 and still family owned, are one of the most well-respected names in Burgundy, especially through their flagship wine, the iconic Clos des Mouches.
A huge part of the Drouhin production comes from their own domaine fruit (78 hectares), and much of the rest comes from contracts such as that with the Marquis de Laguiche, who shook hands with the grandfather of the current generation, agreeing to let him manage his vineyards which included an important part of Le Montrachet; this collaboration endures. Today, the fourth generation is at the helm
Small refinements continue to be made here. The presses have been changed - a reversion to basket pressing for the reds, and for whites the presses are open - along with a number of other growers they are following the trend to think that slight oxidation of the juice before fermentation is not a problem and may add complexity as well as avoiding later problems of premature oxidation in bottle.
For the reds there has been the introduction of selective whole-bunch fermentation in the Côte de Nuits wines. The house style remains one that 'emphasises the natural elegance of great Burgundies' as they describe it. The domaine is all cultivated with an organic and biodynamic approach.
Domaine Christian Clerget
A domaine of 6 hectares, with 8 appellations, run by Christian, Isabelle and their daughter Justine Clerget from their house in the northern end of the little village of Vougeot, which is really in the commune of Chambolle. They have been organic (certified) since 2017, Justine having insisted on it when she joined them, but it sounds as though she was pushing at an open door, because Christian is entirely committed to this approach and clearly believes that good wine starts with the vines.
At harvest the grapes are picked into small cases for the short trip to the winery which really is right in the middle of their holdings. They adapt to the vintage conditions, so that they did 2 pigeages in total in 2019, whereas in 2017, they did one a day throughout the fermentation. In 2018 they did some whole bunch fermentation, but reverted to their normal complete destemming in 2019. At the end of the alcoholic fermentation Christian decants into tank, allows the wine to settle for ten days, then puts the wines into barrel where they stay without racking until bottling. They are using about 30% new wood on the villages and 40% on the Chambolle Charmes and the Échézeaux, and the wines stay in barrel for a long élevage of 18-20 months.
Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron
Domaine ‘JJ’ Confuron is named after the father of Sophie Meunier, who now runs the domaine with her husband Alain Meunier. Gradually they are handing it over to their son Louis.The domaine goes back to the marriage in 1926 of Jean Confuron de Vosne and Anne-Marie Bouchard de Premeaux, starting with the vines that they both inherited. Together, they acquired more and started selling their own bottled wine in the early 1930s. Jean died in 1965. They had two sons, Christian and Jean-Jacques, who worked together until 1980. Jean-Jacques set up his own estate in 1981, but he died in January 1983. From then on it was his wife Andrée Noëllat and his daughter Sophie who took care of the estate. Sophie met Alain Meunier at the Lycée agricole in Beaune and from the 1985 harvest they worked together. In 1988, Andrée received one hectare of vines from her grandfather Charles Noëllat's domaine, which included the important parcels in Romanée St-Vivant, Nuits Boudots and Vosne Beaux Monts.
Since Louis has taken over the winemaking there have been some changes, but as they have no fixed 'recipe' it is hard to be precise - the levels of new wood seem to have dropped slightly, and like a lot of growers Louis has used some whole-bunch fermentation. On the whole they are relatively early pickers, and the wines have a generous depth of fruit. Although they have been organic since the 1990's Louis is concerned that the soils are still not in the best of health, so he is trying grassing over - but is concerned that this can mean competition for the vines and lower yields. In general he's trying to improve biodiversity in the vineyards, but says that they are going at it by feel, with small changes to see what works - a very practical hands-on approach. He spends 80% of his time tending the vines, and is working to make the plants more resistant to disease and rot.
Jasper Morris was impressed on his visit to taste the 2022s "This may be the best range of red wines I have seen from the domaine, where Louis’ fine-tuning over the last few years is paying dividends in terms of precision and purity."
Thibault Liger-Belair Successeurs
The lack of the word 'domaine' in the name signals that this is a négociant wine from Thibault Liger-Belair. Thibault buys the grapes he picks having tended the vines with his own team, so that the wines are domaine wines in all but name.
Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair
The steady progression of this domaine has been fascinating to watch as Thibault gradually refines his approach to each parcel of vines. Viticulture is biodynamic (since 2005), yields low but not ludicrously low, everything is pragmatic, so that he should be doing just what is necessary and no more. He uses 40-50% new wood maximum, with wood chosen and aged by him, and barrels made with almost no toasting.
The wines are bright, pure, focused, aromatic and elegant without lacking anything in the way of stuffing. There is a range of wines produced from rented vines or from bought grapes, sold under the separate 'Thibault Liger-Belair Successeurs' label. To each parcel the team brings great experience and there is a coherence across the range, so that the whole enterprise can be regarded as one.
Domaine Anne Gros
Anne Gros joined her father François at the family domaine in Vosne Romanée in 1988, having given up her arts studies in favour of viticulture and oenology at Beaune and Dijon, she took charge of the domaine in 1995 and has been joined now by 2 of her children Julie since 2015 and Paul since 2017. The Domaine now has 7 hectares of Pinot and Chardonnay. Anne describes herself as being 'wary of certainties and keen to preserve her freedom'.
In the vineyards Anne practises viticulture influenced by organic and biodynamic principles, and the vineyards are ploughed and fertilised with compost, but although she believes that the long-term health of the vineyards are best preserved by such methods, she likes to maintain the freedom to use conventional treatments when necessary.
In the cellar, the wines are classically made, in cement tanks for the reds, and stainless steel for the whites. They are then aged in barrel for up to fifteen months, with 80% new wood for the grand crus, 50% for the village wines and 30% for the regional wines. Anne is quietly meticulous and almost obsessive about cleanliness in her cellar, which perhaps is reflected in the delicacy and restrained tension in her wines, which have aromatic clarity, limpid precision, sheer joie de vivre, lively balance and persistence.
Domaine Henri Boillot
A domaine which dates back to 1885, but which began properly in the early years of the 20th century under the current Henri's grandfather (also Henri). His son, Jean, was the one who really developed it. Henri arrived in 1975 and worked his way up, becoming the winemaker. In 2000 he began the building of the new winery at the bottom of Meursault, and he then bought out his brother and sister to keep the domaine as one, renaming it from 'Domaine Jean Boillot' to 'Domaine Henri Boillot' to avoid confusion with his brother Jean-Marc's domaine.
Henri’s son Guillaume who was responsible for the vinification of the reds from 2012 to 2022. Henri continues to make the whites which he likes to be 'straight, taut, precise, pure and elegant'. Guillaume's input resulted in red wines that gained in definition and energy, without losing the luxurious velvety richness and fruit depth that they always had. From 2018 Guillaume expanded his use of vinification intégrale in which the reds are vinified in the barrels they will be aged in - the cellar being equipped with 140 barrels with stainless steel doors in the ends, all made of wood they bought for the purpose, which has been dried for three years. Labour-intensive and time-consuming though it is, Henri and his new oenologist Mireille Malis clearly thought it worth continuing, as now that Guillaume has left to become a négociant in his own right, the domaine has persisted with this method in 2024. Mireille, who was working at Fréderic Magnien, had previous experience with the domaine of the Lycée Agricole in Beaune as well as at Domaine Roederer in California and other stages in Bordeaux (Cheval Blanc) and Burgundy (Bouchard Père et Fils), will no doubt add her own thumbprint - 2024 saw the first use of an optical sorting machine and they are very happy with the results.
The Domaine has roughly equal surfaces of red and white, and of which just under 4ha is the Monopole vineyard of Clos de la Mouchère, a walled enclave within the premier Cru Puligny Perrières. After the 2018 acquisition of small parcels in Latricières and Échezeaux, the Boillots bought the vineyards of Domaine Henri Darnat early in 2019, bringing in a new monopole Clos in Meursault, the Clos Richemont, part of 1er Cru les Cras.
They feel that 2023 is a very good vintage in both colours, both in quantity and quality - perhaps even better in white, although we thought the reds excellent and beautifully balanced on our visit.
