For descriptive and conceptual purposes, we tend to discuss and taste wines from a huge area and call them Burgundy. Varietals aside, the wines of Irancy for instance, at the northwestern tip of Burgundy bear little resemblance to those of the Cote d’Or. Their taste, texture and tension are more akin to the vineyards of the eastern Loire Valley.
Warmth of the Maconnais
Similarly, the wines of the Maconnais, with its gentle undulations, rich colours and warm sunshine, look, feel and taste like a departure from northern France. We’re still a long way from the south to be sure, but the frisson of warmth is unmistakable and the promises of youth, school holidays and relaxation are immediately apparent.
Generous Chardonnay
The best vineyards are limestone based, but are richer and more fertile than their more famous counterparts, giving rise to wines of weight, power and generosity. The most well known appellation is Macon-Villages, but it’s in Pouilly-Fuisse, Pouilly-Vinzelles, Pouilly-Loche, Vire-Clesse and St-Veran where the finest wines are made. Typically the wines are generous and immense and, at their fullest, the densest chardonnays in the world. This may come as a surprise to many, but even some of the Zeppelins coming out of California are no match for these.
100% new oak
Here is a region where you will still find producers utilising 100% new oak barrels for their best wines, and extended elevage for two years on lees with regular batonnage. Such treatment is almost unheard of today in the rest of Burgundy, indeed the rest of the world, and yet, such is the concentration of yellow and exotic fruit, that they can take it. Very few chardonnays in Australia are made this way, in fact I can’t think of any.
Biodynamic
However, not all producers are chasing hedonism. Biodynamic viticulture tends to ripen grapes with lower alcohol, rendering greater freshness and minerality. Freshness has become vogue, so the use of old oak and ageing without batonnage is more and more common. With a string of warm and dry vintages the Maconnais is undergoing a reassessment of some of the cooler vineyards, most particularly Vergisson. High cool vineyards that are hard to work with machines has led to a natural conscientiousness and less reliance on herbicides and and chemical preparations.
Wealth of fruit
All regions are generalised, yet offer diversity. The Maconnais’ great defining attribute is its wealth of fruit; darker, yellow and tropical. Generosity of flavour, round shapes, soft textures and blurred structures, combined with its fruit offer an almost clichéd ideal of Chardonnay, yet magically, they are unlike any from anywhere else in the world.
Tasting Notes:
Saumaize-Michelin Saint Veran 2020
A great introduction to the estate, very much of their style and what one tends to expect from these parts. Lovely lift, with lemon, lime preserve, savoury spice, white flowers and yellow fruits. Pulpy and juicy, thoroughly abundant, with cream, spice some citrus zest, mandarin and white peach. Good energy to balance the satiny richness. Absorbing and moreish and really quite fine.
Saumaize-Michelin Vire-Cleese 2020
Tangy and zesty with citrus, grapefruit, white peach, jasmine and pear. A wine that ensures that you’re tasting the south, full flavoured and rich, but perhaps slightly more controlled and linear than the rest of the range. Yellow fruits begin to emerge on the palate, but are kept very much in check by the lavish citrus, spice and preserved vine leaves. Long carry, driven almost and still succulent.
Saumize-Michelin Pouilly Fuisse Pentacrine 2020
A blend of 5 parcels around Vergisson with an average vine age of 40 years. Barrel fermented and aged in 600L barrels, full malolactic fermentation and lees stirred. Cooler fruit expression here, with green apple, citrus, white peach, nectarine and honeycomb. Expansive, with lovely fluffy texture and sleek weight. More sizzling and tangy, still rich mind, but with a zesty, pithy and mineral intensity quite different from the rest of the range. Long and persistent, vital and buoyant. Absolutely delicious.
Saumaize-Michelin Pouilly Fuisse Les Ronchevats 2020
From 60 year old vines, facing southwest, grown in rich clay soils. Barrel fermented, aged in small format oak and 100% malolactic fermentation. In other words, entirely traditional, resulting in a rich, full bodied and expressive wine. Oak nuances, stone fruits, preserved citrus and pawpaw. Full bodied, unctuous, real mouthful demanding a roast chicken or turkey. Some lemon curd and brioche notes, providing some sizzle to the otherwise flavoursome yellow and stone fruits. Wonderful hedonism.
Saumize-Michelin Pouilly Fuisse Clos Sur La Roche 1er Cru 2020
The estate’s flagship wine, with 1.6ha of vines. The parcel starts from the bottom of the slope to the top, with the oldest vines at the bottom. The coolest and rockiest part of the vineyard is at the top, getting hotter and the soils getting richer as you travel down the slope. Most producers would be tempted to cut and dice such a parcel, but I’m pretty happy this hasn’t been done. There would be a great deal of better, balanced and more complete wines coming out of Burgundy if there were less emphasis placed on tiny parcels. I digress. Extremely complex, with tangy citrus, bright stone and succulent orchard fruits. Wood spice, cream, jasmine, a sprinkling of sage and honey. Full bodied, concentrated and expansive. Deep and fanning, massive flavour, yet well framed by high quality oak and bright acidity. Rolling and dramatic, firming up and phenolic towards the close. Still quite elemental, wonderful and promises to be extraordinary.
Saumize-Michelin Pouilly Fuisse Vers Cras 1er Cru 2020
Restrained power, displaying the width, richness and vitality of the vintage. Spring jasmine, honeysuckle and a compote of citrus and stone fruit. Deep, expansive and rich, fanning out across the palate and gripping the corners. Green mango, dried apricot, yellow peach, apricot, subtle wood notes and clotted cream. Remarkable freshness and vitality that drives and frames near on opulence. Satiny, almost lanolin like, with a gourmand phenolic squeeze to close.
Saumize-Michelin Pouilly Fuisse Ampelopsis 2019
Monumental wine. For all the talk of size from the new world, it’s still France where the most opulent and hedonistic chardonnays are from. Soaring aromatics, beaming southern sunshine and embracing warmth. Apricot, yellow peach, nectarine, wood spice, brioche and spring jasmine. Succulent and unashamedly massive. Incredible depth and concentration, buttressed with buoyant acidity. Green mango, sage, tarragon, mandarin, orange blossom, grapefruit, citrus and stone fruits. This is sizzling, basking in sunshine and cool water freshness. A real statement wine, showcasing the region’s strengths and of a style unlike anywhere else in the world.
La Soufrandiere St-Veran La Combe Desroches 2020
A more chiseled St-Veran, but also the most fleshy and open wine of the estate. Yellow fruits of apricot, white peach and nectarine, sage and orange blossom. Absolutely absorbing, explosive power, incredibly bright highlighted flavours, yet in no way heavy. Refreshing almost, if it wasn’t for the sheer concentration and intensity. The feel of peach skin a constant, massaging the palate until the final flourish of salt-infused freshness. Compact and tense, again that expanse and width of palate. Stunning.
La Soufrandiere Macon-Vinzelles Le Clos de Grand-Pere 2020
Delicate aromatics, not so much closed but hinting. Cool, herbal notes with lemon, preserved lime, grapefruit, white peach and nectarine. Super energy, not surging, but rather like a dancer, each step revealing something new. Chiseled and compact, this has so much more to offer if you can be patient. Mandarin, sage, lemon oil, green mango, orange blossom and zest, and not just the taste, but the textures too. Almost whimsical as flavours are teased, peeled from the whole. Intense, pure and tensile, the palate is very long and elegant, yet showing great strength. Salty notes absorb the finish, all indicating a very long life ahead.
La Soufrandiere St Veran Climat La Bonnode 2020
Riper and deeper than the Desroches, weightier too, yet the chisel, tenseness and precision are on another level. Pulpy and fleshy with lime, white peach, nectarine, dried and fresh apricot, citrus blossom and savoury spice. Absorbing funnel-like shape. Upon entry, an attack of high-toned coolness before fleshing out, enveloping all the space with textured fruit, freshly picked from the tree. Dramatic and surging, chalky and mineral, frothing towards a narrowing saline and preserved vine leaf finish. Remarkable.
La Soufrandiere Pouilly-Vinzelles Les Longeays 2020
Perhaps the emblematic wine of the estate, combining tension, palate weight and power. The high tones, flowers, saltiness and fruit weight are dialled up here, and at this point are in contrast to each other. Time, preferably lots of it will see these two sides come together, although this is one of the most remarkably elemental chardonnays in the world. Slightly subdued nose of white flowers, green apple, vine leaf preserved citrus and stone fruits. The aromatics are less defined than the other wines, but wait for it… Bracing and tense, compact and tightly wound, surely the stiffest spring of this release. Coaxing doing little to reveal the depths. Dense and concentrated, and a further element, extract. Flavours and textures duck and weave, but are not interwoven. Teasing, because there’s greatness alright, but just not yet.
Verget Bourgogne Terres de Pierres 2020
A blend of two vineyards, from young vines in Pierreclos and Macon-Charney. The two very different parcels work so well, the Pierreclos bringing weight and depth, the Macon-Charney, brightness and piquancy. Very southern aromatics of stone and yellow fruits, white flowers and subtle wood spice. Rich and soft palate, with creamy edges from its time on lees. Gliding texture, lanolin and woolly with a lift of citrus fruit focusing and driving the finish. Very long and thoroughly complete. An absolute bargain.
Verget Macon-Bussieres Vignes de Montbrison 2020
A very refined Macon from a village renowned for bright wines with a tingly spine of acidity. Fermented entirely in wood and aged in 25% new French oak. Oak blurs the edges here, which unusually for this part of the world possesses an angular structure. Citrus notes, grapefruit, white peach, nectarine, cashew and wood spice. So much flavour, a real powerhouse. Driven and super bright, with green apple notes and brioche in the mix. There’s a tingling, pithy squeeze adding textural interest, which holds the palate for a couple of minutes at least. Precise, focused and long. Stunning.
And a couple of Chablis’ too….
Verget Chablis Cuvee de la Butte 2018
From a plot adjacent to the premier cru Les Butteaux, facing south-east. Fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel, on fine lees with regular batonnage. This is ideal Chablis for me, expressive elegant and cool, bright, vivid and with no hard edges. Lemon, lime, orange blossom, gardenia, brioche and mandarin. Elegant, medium bodied, pulpy and detailed. Lovely soft texture, cut through with minerals, and green olive acidity. Quite lovely.
Verget Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons 2019
Vaillons lies across the Serein River, opposite the Grand Crus. Here we find the wines a little cooler, with more citrus and bright stone fruits. They tend to have a vibrancy and energy not seen in the Grand Cru’s so are quite different. Deep and focused, all green apple, lemon, lime, white peach and nectarine. Aged on lees, lending subtle creamy notes and softening the edges. Full flavoured, without being full bodied, expansive and broad. Focuses and gains in intensity along the palate, tightening up towards the close. Very complex and of a style I find it hard to imagine anyone not loving.
