2019 Domaine de Montille, Bourgogne Blanc, Clos du Chateau, Monopole, White Burgundy, France.
This 2019 Clos du Chateau Bourgogne Blanc is fantastic effort a perfect balance of crisp mineral driven precision and richness on the palate, this wine really punches way above its price point, highlighting the quality of these vines in Puligny and the talents of Alix de Montille, who crafts the white wines here. This Chardonnay has brilliant detail and depth with layers of lemon, apple, pear and white peach fruits, along with a steely frame, wet stones, hazelnut, quince and clove spice adding background complexity here. As the Clos du Chateau opens up a pretty white flower bouquet emerges as well as a textural lessy note and allows a subtle creaminess, which gives this beautiful white Burgundy and extra degree of presence and luxury in the mouth. This lightly golden Chardonnay was 100% indigenous yeast fermented in large format barrels and goes through full malo-lactic conversion. Alix has done a masterful job here keeping vibrancy and tension, while also delivering the impressive density, there’s a lot to admire here, especially for the price. The Clos du Chateau is a walled vineyard set on classic chalky limestone and clay soils right in the heart of the village, and provides exceptional grapes, making for one of the best values in the Cote de Beaune, as this vintage certainly proves. This 2019 will bring a ton of joy to Burgundy fans and will age lovely in the bottle for up to a decade I believe, but at this price most will happily drink it up sooner versus later!

The Domaine de Montille, mostly known for great Volnay, is one of the historic domaines in Burgundy and the wines are considered some the world’s most serious and age worthy wines. The De Montille family heritage has long been rooted in wine and law, they go back to the 17th century and have a winemaking heritage in the Cote d’Or since about 1750, but became famous under the leadership of the legendary Hubert de Montille, who took over in 1947 and led the estate to incredible heights. This era saw the winery enjoy huge success and expand the number of top Premier Cru and Lieu-Dit holdings in their hands. It’s well noted, Hubert’s son, Étienne, also trained as a lawyer like his father and grandfather, who joined the domaine in 1983, had big plans and after a well planned transition gained control of the cellars in 1990. Étienne was instrumental is the conversion to organic farming and by 2005 De Montille started going biodynamic as well, a direction that has added an extra degree of energy and quality to their already world class wines. Étienne also was busy consulting for Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet, which he after many years of trying brought into the De Montille fold, and which is where this Clos du Chateau Bourgogne Blanc comes from. Étienne’s sister Alix, who is married to Jean-Marc Roulot, the famed Meursault producer, joined the family cellars in 2006 and as mentioned above took over the white wines here and has really elevated them to almost the equal to the reds! I have long been a fan of this bottling, which is now labeled under the Domaine de Montille, rather than under the old Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet label, and I highly recommend searching this exciting release.
($40 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive

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