2020  Cotes d'Auxerre Blanc

Cotes d'Auxerre Blanc ---- "Lavallée's 2020 Bourgogne Côtes d'Auxerre Blanc is very promising, offering up notes of citrus, Anjou pear, green apple and white flowers. Medium-bodied, elegantly fleshy and concentrated, it's fine-boned but intensely flavored. It's produced from deep but stony soils and, in total, amounts to a mere four barrels." - 88-90pts William Kelley, Wine Advocate ---- One of my most exciting discoveries in Chablis and the Auxerrois was fledgling Domaine Clément Lavallée. Clement's father is the proprietor of a substantial, modern and mechanized domaine in Saint-Bris, but Clément's aspirations were more artisanal. He started his own label in 2019, with just 3.5 hectares supplemented by purchased fruit - a surface that's grown to 5.5 hectares today. Eschewing herbicides, he cultivates the soils with lightweight tractors and keeps chemical treatments to the minimum. Working with a variety of sites and cépages, harvest lasts a full month. In the cellar, whites see a long pressing, with Clément selling in bulk any juice that doesn't please him, and reds see long macerations with a percentage of whole bunches. Élevage takes place in used wood on the lees, and the wines are never pumped. What I tasted on this first visit indicates that Lavallée hit the ground running with his very first vintage. Textural but incisive, pure and penetrating, I was immensely impressed by these young wines - from pungently mineral Chablis, to perfumed and intense reds, to Saint-Bris that's more Auxerrois than it is Sauvignon, everything here comes warmly recommended, and I encourage importers to beat a path to this new domaine's door.

2019  Cote de Nuits Villages

Cote de Nuits Villages ---- "The 2019 Côte de Nuits-Villages offers up aromas of cherries, raspberries and plums, complemented by hints of sweet spices and loamy soil. Medium to full-bodied, round and fleshy, it's generous but balanced, with a seamless, gourmand profile." - 90pts William Kelley, WA

2019  Beaumont

Beaumont ---- "From Gamay vines planted in 1978 in the coolest of the domaine's red wine parcels, the 2019 Mâcon-Cruzille Beaumont exhibits notions of red berries, warm spices, smoke, raw cocoa and orange rind. Medium to full-bodied, lively and concentrated, it's deep and sapid, with powdery tannins and a long, floral finish. It was vinified without any destemming. As I wrote of its 2018 counterpart, this is a serious, inherently structured wine, so readers shouldn't be misled by the modest appellation into drinking it too soon: four or five years' bottle age will be richly rewarded." - 92+pts WA ---- "It took me time, I confess, to understand the wines of Domaine Guillot-Broux. These are tightly wound, concentrated whites, framed by chalky dry extract from low yields and intelligent pressing, and they take their time to evolve in the cellar. That's a far cry from the stereotype of the northern Mâconnais - honeyed, facile, giving - but when you visit the vineyards, you understand. Rocky, sloping, enclosed sites at the forest's edge - some recently recovered from its encroachments - are planted with old vines of Chardonnay, Gamay and Pinot Noir, and they've never seen chemical farming. Of course, opening old bottles also helps make sense of these wines: complex, mineral and sapid, it's clear that 20 years is the minimum rather than the maximum at this address. But the rewards of patience, as so often, are considerable; and when you get to know them, it's hard to argue that these number among the region's finest exemplars. As I've written before, Emmanuel Guillot's grapes are harvested by hand, with the whites pressed to barrel directly and the reds fermented in small tanks, often with more than a little whole-cluster inclusion. With the 2019 vintage, taking advantage of market dislocation occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Guillot opted to extend élevage: so most of his whites, having spent a year in barrel, saw an additional six months in tank. Whether or not it's the inherent quality of the vintage, or the fact that those additional six months really seem to help these structured wines flesh out and unwind, the 2019s are the most impressive young wines I've tasted to date at this address, and everything reviewed here comes warmly recommended." - William Kelley, Wine Advocate

2020  Hautes-Cotes de Beaune

Sourced from the Hautes Cotes de Beaune, the area on the top of Cote d'Or escarpment, and the adjacent valleys and slopes. This 1.5 hectares vineyard is situated 5 kilometers west of Meursault in the communes of Orche and Baubigny. Vine age is 15-40 years old. A lovely and refeshing Hautes Cotes de Beaune highlighted by aromas of raspberry and cassis, along with a delicate spice. Pierre Boisson is drawn to the "mountain" terroirs of Auxey and the Hautes Cotes de Beaune, for both their stony terroirs and lower temperatures.

1990  

2022  Cote D'Or Chadonnay

"Very pretty aromas are comprised by notes of freshly cut citrus, white peach and a background hint of petrol character. The super-sleek, delicious and attractively vibrant middleweight flavors conclude in an agreeably dry and sneaky long finish. This is very good for its level and worth checking out plus it should repay a few years of keeping." - Outstanding, Burghound

2021  Savigny-les-Beaune Vieilles Vignes

"As it usually is, the nose is quite spicy with a deft application of wood framing notes of plum, black cherry, violet and a whiff of the sauvage. There is again excellent volume to the quite finely textured middleweight flavors that possess slightly better depth on the cool and impressively long finale. This is a first-rate Savigny villages and worth your interest." - Outstanding, Top Value, Burghound

2020  Bougogne Rouge

"Aromas of cherries, spices, rose petals and burning embers introduce Felettig's 2020 Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Rouge, a medium to full-bodied, rich and fleshy wine with an ample core of fruit framed by ripe, powdery tannins. A decade ago, who could have imagined that fruit of such maturity would be harvested in the Hautes-Côtes?" - William Kelley, WA

2022  Bourgogne Rouge

Bourgogne Rouge ---- "A fresh and distinctly earthy dark berry fruit nose is trimmed in just enough wood to notice. The succulent and velvet-textured middleweight flavors possess fine concentration while delivering better than average depth and persistence on the balanced finale. A quality Bourgogne." - "Top Value", Burghound

2020  Macon Cruzille

2019  

2019