2020 Domaine Roulot, Auxey-Duresses Blanc, Côte de Beaune, White Burgundy, France.
Very concentrated and rich on the palate, this bright yellow/gold 2020 Auxey-Duresses Blanc by superstar winemaker Jean-Marc Roulot, sines in the glass and is lush on the full bodied palate, showing off the vintage, with rich lemony citrus, apple, Asian pear and golden fig fruits, along with leesy brioche, clove spice, chalky wet stone, hazelnut and white blossom notes. While deep and rounded, this wine has a good underlying acidity and mineral drive, making it an exciting Roulot that can be drunk in its youth. Having had many Roulot wines, especially the Meursault bottlings over the years, this wine kind of surprised me with the luxurious mouth feel and density of fruit, as the Roulot style is usually more racy and intensely steely in nature, but after having some food and time in the glass it found its poise and was truly excellent Burgundy. The Auxey-Duresses AOC is a prime location of both red and white, sitting between Pommard and Meursaut, just southwest of Beaune, but still flies under the radar, making the wines from here solid values, even from top quality and elite producers like Roulot. Jean-Marc Roulot has redefined modern Meursault wines and they are very very collectable, almost unicorn wines at this point and are widely admired for the precision, lively tension and chiseled mineral cores.
I started getting to know Domaine Roulot with the 2012 vintage, and through importer Kermit Lynch, who has played a big role in bringing these wines to the attention of the greater wine world and highlighting the talents of Guy Roulot and now Jean-Marc, who is the iconic personality behind these wines. The domaine itself dates back to 1930, but it was after Guy married Geneviève Coche that Roulot got some of the legendary vine holdings that has made the winery’s name so famous. The all certified organic tiny Auxey-Duresses block, with 60 year old vines, and set on classic clay and limestone soils is a prime Chardonnay site The whites are fermented in oak barriques, with this one seeing an average of 15-18% of new wood and the lees are lightly stirred every three to four weeks, until malolactic fermentation starts. The Auxey-Duresses (Chardonnay) is aged in barrel sur lie for 11 months, then racked to stainless steel vats for 7 more months of aging before bottling, to perfectly capture vintage and terroir in the bottle. These wines of Domaine Roulot are now among the most sought after wines in all of Burgundy, as Kermit Lynch notes, and they are very tough to find, especially the single Lieu-Dit Meursaults, though the Auxey-Duresses, not cheap by any means, as seen here, and Bourgogne Blanc, which I typically go after, are getable.
($150-190 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive