Experience our January 2024 Burgundy wine trip as we explore exceptional vineyards, enjoy exclusive tastings, and discover hidden Chardonnay and Pinot Noir gems.

When you are asked to go to Burgundy on an en-primeur wine buying trip for work, you don’t ask questions.  After arriving in Beaune we grabbed dinner at a local bar and started as we meant to go on, with some delicious chardonnay and pinot noir!

The thing I unexpectedly loved about Burgundy was the aspect of scale. Some producers have sprawling cellars and historic family houses with commercial tasting rooms, and others have much more unassuming facades or even conduct tastings in their own kitchens!

A perfect example of the latter was our first tasting with Domain Sylvain Dussort. At the time of our visit they were in the process of renovating the small farmhouse which sits directly over the barrel cellar, so we were greeted in the muddy front garden and shown to a small tasting room in a barn-like outbuilding. The Bourgogne Blanc Cuvée des Ormes is the signature wine of the estate and it is such a steal as you’re essentially getting the character of Meursault for entry level Bourgogne Blanc price. The fruit comes from their old vineyards around Meursault and the wine is 100% barrel fermented giving great texture and complexity. The Meursault Vieilles Vignes comes from 50+ year old vines and offers structure and old-vine richness that cannot be beaten for the pricepoint.

Sylvain’s daughter Anne-Caroline has taken responsibility for the domaine’s red wines and has imprinted her signature on them. As opposed to Sylvain’s Pinot Noir that was designed to be aged and needed time to soften, Anne-Caroline (who treads the grapes with her feet) has produced some absolutely charming and approachable 2022 vintage reds.

After a quick croissant break we were off to Saint Aubin to join our friends from Planet of the Grapes on a visit Domaine Moingeon. This family run estate has passed from father to son for generations, each one adding new parcels of vines in both Puligny and Chassagne Montrachet. We were greeted warmly by Florent, the latest generation overseeing the success of the Domaine, and for Mark it was like seeing an old friend. He last visited back in 2017 when Florent’s father was in charge so it was amazing to taste these new vintages all together.

Like his father, Florent favours a light touch with oak, using 20%- 30% new barrels each year (depending on the wine) and based on what we tasted of the 2022 vintage, this domaine will undoubtedly continue to be a good source of exquisitely-made and reasonably-priced wine. The wines were showing absolutely beautifully and it was super interesting that we could really taste the terroir differences between the vineyards and plots. Of the Premier Crus, the Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru La Garenne (no stranger to our Chesil wine list) is more mineral and zippy, while the Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Vergers is on the richer and more powerful side. For Mark it was also interesting for him to see the difference between the slightly tighter 2015 vintages they were tasting on his first visit, and the quite fleshy 2022s we tasted in January. All-in-all a great pit-stop to replenish the Chesil cellar with our old favourites!

From the small-scale production of Domaine Moingeon, we moved on to the Domaine Louis Latour house in Aloxe-Corton which was an entirely different beast. We had a tour around the barrel room and learnt about the history of the mine-cart rail-track system above our heads. They used to use them to transport the freshly picked grapes directly into the top of the barrels – genius!

We were then treated to tasting of their delicious Montagny 1er Cru, Puligny-Montrachet and Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru, as well as Chassagne-Montrachet, Beaune and Aloxe-Corton (slightly older at 2018) which were absolutely stunning. The commercial marketability of these wines is easy to see once you have sampled them. Silky tannins in the reds, beautiful oak integration in the whites, bags of fresh fruit and a very clean finish.

We were totally blown away by the Latour family private cellar. These thousands of bottles have been collected for over a century now – some purchased as keepsakes and others given as gifts by visiting winemakers. They managed to keep the cellar intact through both world wars and it was magical to see it. None of these wines will ever be for sale, but just imagine all that history – if only the bottles could talk and tell us their story.

Dinner was a humble affair at Le Maufoux in Beaune – we were very sensible and didn’t over-indulge on the wine. Myself and Louis had a very good excuse for an early night – we were booked for a tasting with AF Gros at 9am!

Up at the crack of dawn, myself and Louis wandered over to the office of Domaine AF Gros in the centre of Beaune ready for our tasting. We met with Sophie, the head of the Domaine and were treated to a comprehensive tasting – from barrel – of 10 different cuvees and vintages of their reds – including their super premium Richebourg Grand Cru (we were grinning from ear to ear) which definitely made the early start worthwhile! The range of profiles was staggering, with floral, delicate and lighter bodied wines all the way through to the bigger, more powerful and spicy expressions of Pinot Noir.

Next on the tour was a visit to the endearing Claude Marechal, who’s wines we have stocked at the Chesil for many many years. His wines have a more rustic feel to them as he endeavours to make them as naturally as possible, and the operation is much less ‘wine-tourism’ focussed than some other domaines. We arrived during bottling of one of his white cuvees and the sound of the bottles rattling through machine in the warehouse made the experience all the more authentic and wholesome. Burghound’s Allen Meadows has said of Claude’s wines that “the quality of these wines is nothing short of phenomenal compared to the usual quality of the respective appellations” and we would have to agree. His reds have great bramble and red fruits, amazing complexity and potential for ageing, as well as clearly expressing the difference in terroir between villages and vineyard plots. His Bourgogne Blanc Cuvée Antoine was creamy yet balanced with great acidity and some citrus fruit and baked apple on the nose – a new favourite of mine! Whilst his Savigny-lès-Beaune Blanc is rich and stylish, with well-integrated oak (20% new oak).

Claude’s wines are very sought-after and production is relatively small so we are always super grateful to have him on our wine-list.

Quick pit-stop for a hearty steak at Café de Paris in Nuits-Saint-Georges (definitely needed!) then on to Domaine Faiveley which provided a stark juxtaposition to the one-man, rural Marechal operation. The barrel room has a very cathedral-esque vibe, with cavernous ceilings and exposed brick. There had clearly been a lot of thought around the wine-tourism industry and a lot of consideration has gone into the consumer journey:

From the decorated entrance hall with stylish wooden crates to the beautiful courtyard overlooking the vines, with artwork and sculptures, all the way down to the rabbit warren ageing cellars which seem to stretch on indefinitely, each barrel guarding its own precious cuvee.

My showstoppers from the tasting were the Clos de Beze Grand Cru, and Clos de Corton Grand Cru – I was most dismayed when they wouldn’t let me take the barrels home with me!

The day didn’t stop there, as we then took a short jolly over to Domaine Remoriquet, also in Nuits-Saint-Georges. These wines also have an air of rusticity about them, with winemaker Gilles favouring a longer period of skin contact than some other producers in order to obtain a gentle extraction of aromas, colours and tannins, and an optimum expression of the terroir. Our host Ann, and winemaker Gilles really

took us on a journey from the fabulously fresh, perfumed Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits 2022; to the Nuits-Saint-Georges and Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Allots which were both approachable now but will inevitably get better with age. The Les Allots is from fifty-year-old vines and had noticeably more concentration and depth. The star of the show was the Vosne-Romanée 1er cru Au Dessous des Malconsorts which is a serious wine with power and depth, ripe fruit, concentrated tannin and an earthy undertone.

We ended the day with a final tasting at Domaine Remi Jeanniard over in Morey-St-Denis just as the sun was setting. Remi Jeanniard has just over seven hectares of vines in and around the village of Morey-St-Denis and his vines are much older than average, with the Morey-St-Denis Vieilles Vignes over 60 years old, thereby giving a natural concentration and depth to his well-structured and elegant wines.

For me, the showstopper was the Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes which has everything I expect from this appellation – more power, structure, tannin and brooding dark fruit.

What a great way to end the day! I will admit that we had a very good time over a tasting menu dinner at Caves de Madelaine in Beaune centre-ville, and some very nice bottles were consumed.

We managed to squeeze in one final tasting in the morning before heading back to Dijon to catch the TGV up to Paris. Maxime Dubuet-Boillot is a rising star in Burgundy, having trained and made wine under Gilles Remoriquet before making his own wine. When I first started working at the Chesil Rectory we had Maxime’s first wine Volnay Sur Roches on our list. Now he has over 10 different wines in his portfolio, all stylistically recognisable as Dubuet-Boillet with good colour and weight, but without excessive tannin. They are pure and velvety, won’t require extended ageing before drinking, and are inherently expressive of their terroir. His cellar is very small, and the tasting was a much more intimate experience, being as both Mark and Matt have met and tasted with him many times previously, it was very much more a warm conversation between friends than a sales pitch.

Something we were surprised by was the approachable nature of the 2022 vintage Burgundies. The reds were fruit forward and plump, and the whites had a very well-integrated acid profile meaning the majority could be enjoyed basically immediately after purchase instead of being laid down to mature for a long period of time

A Bientot Burgundy!

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