2020 Burgundy: Cote Chalonnaise

Jacqueson, Ponsot, Raquillet, Charton, Lumpp

South of the town of Chagny, the great single limestone escarpment that is the Cote d'Or breaks up, and is succeeded by a more complex patchwork of hills and valleys. This is the Cote Chalonnaise. With no single slope to unite them, vineyards here are more scattered. But soil types are very similar to the Cote d'Or (limestone and clay, with supporting acts) and from the right vineyard, the wines can be magical.

On the evidence of our tasting with Marie Jacqueson in Rully last November, Jacqueson easily retains its status as one of the top Chalonnaise domaines. Jean-Baptiste Ponsot is a new Rully domaine for us: Jean-Baptiste took over in the year 2000, and doesn't seem to have had a day off since. He has planted new vineyards, gone entirely organic with all the extra work that entails, and adapted pruning and vine training on a vineyard-by-vineyard basis. He makes fresh, precise, focused whites very much in the modern idiom.

A new generation of producers are defying the reputation Mercurey once had for rustic wines. Francois Raquillet has some superbly site old vines, and exercises severe selection at the sorting table; his whites combine beautiful aromatic complexity with a very vibrant acidity. Vincent Charton feels that the easy way his wines coped with the 2020 heat vindicates his strict organic approach. He has made a set of reds that are concentrated, structured and classy.

Francois Lumpp has vineyards on the mid-to-upper-slope 'sweet spots' on the rolling hills around Givry, and enjoys a long-established reputation as the village's premier vigneron. These days, his children Anne-Cecile and Pierre are now firmly established at his side, getting ready to take the domaine into the next generation. Crausot Blanc is vibrant and perfumed, the reds are intense and structured. /NT

Read our full 2020 Burgundy vintage report here.

Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment Winter 2022/3