Sommelier Profile
Puligny-Montrachet AOC, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy
Puligny-Montrachet, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy, France
In the glass, Puligny-Montrachet displays a luminous pale gold with faint green highlights, its clarity reflecting both youth and precision. On the palate, the wine is medium- to full-bodied with a silken yet taut texture, its hallmark acidity providing remarkable lift and length. Flavours of white peach, citrus cream, toasted almond, and a saline, flinty minerality unfurl in successive waves across a broad, seamless mid-palate. The finish is long, focused, and gloriously dry, leaving a trail of crushed stone and lemon zest that lingers for well over a minute in a great example.
Puligny-Montrachet, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy, France
Puligny-Montrachet sits at the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, nestled between the villages of Meursault to the north and Chassagne-Montrachet to the south, at elevations ranging from 230 to 330 metres above sea level. The appellation enjoys a continental climate tempered by the shelter of the Hautes-Côtes, with cool mornings and warm afternoons that allow Chardonnay to develop extraordinary tension between ripeness and acidity. It is home to four Grands Crus — Montrachet, Chevalier-Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet, and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet — and is widely regarded as the spiritual home of great white Burgundy.
Chardonnay 100%
Chardonnay here expresses one of its most intellectually complex and site-sensitive incarnations, shaped by the lean, limestone-rich soils into a wine of laser-fine acidity and stony mineral precision. The grape's natural affinity for oak and lees aging allows it to accumulate layers of texture and aromatic complexity that few white varieties on earth can match.
The vineyards are planted predominantly on Bathonian and Oxfordian limestone soils laced with clay and marl, producing grapes of exceptional concentration and natural acidity. Harvest is typically by hand, followed by gentle whole-cluster pressing, with alcoholic fermentation carried out in French oak barrique — typically 20 to 40% new oak for village-level wines, increasing significantly for Premiers and Grands Crus. The wine undergoes full malolactic fermentation and is aged on its fine lees for 12 to 18 months with periodic bâtonnage to build richness and integrate the oak.
The aromatic profile opens with vivid primary stone fruit and white flowers before yielding to secondary notes of toasted nuts and warm bread from lees and oak, with a defining tertiary undercurrent of chalky minerality that is the unmistakable signature of this village.
Puligny-Montrachet's finest recent vintages include 2019, 2017, and 2014 — years that balanced generous ripeness with the village's characteristic tension — while 2016 and 2022 offer compelling arguments for cellaring. Village-level wines are best enjoyed between four and ten years from harvest, while Premiers Crus such as Les Pucelles, Les Folatières, and Le Clavoillon reward patience of a decade or more. At the table, it is sublime alongside Dover sole meunière, lobster with beurre blanc, Comté or Beaufort cheese, and any preparation of scallops or white truffle.