Reviews

Most of this wine comes from a parcel near the top of the vineyard, at the corner just below the alley that leads to the entrance of the Château du Clos de Vougeot; a smaller portion comes from the base of the vineyard, both parcels farmed under biodynamics since 2001. This is more powerful than many wines from this large grand cru, potently reduced so that it’s more feral animal and tar than fruit for now. Underneath that dark funk there’s a youthful floral note that lasts, waiting to emerge more fully as the wine resolves with age.

The Boisset family owns some of the rare chardonnay vines in Vougeot, farming them under biodynamics and consistently producing distinctly delicious white Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits. Of the 74 plots covering 104 acres, this monopole, across a small road to the north of Clos de Vougeot, is its most prized. Jasper Morris, MW, in an article for this magazine (October 2012), compared the soil at this site to that of Vougeraie’s holding directly across the road, where pinot noir is planted in the Clos de Vougeot: “The Clos Blanc is much lighter in color, with more chips of limestone evident. The underlying rock is different too, being an unusual salmon pink conglomerate of the Oligocene period, not seen in Clos de Vougeot or other adjoining vineyards.” The monks who are said to have planted this site to white grapes in 1110 would have probably donned sunglasses to taste this 2015. It’s powerfully compressed, blinding in its white-lime acidity, a cool, crisp evocation of the soil. Flinty in its youthful reduction, there’s something ineffably refreshing about this wine.

Exuberant and lush, this wine has a deep earthen character to contrast its vibrant fruit. It opens in the glass, as if you had opened the door of a dark root cellar, then brightens to spice and brandied cherry notes. The texture is velvet, even as the wine is all youthful intensity and grip. This vineyard lies at the border with Nuits-St-Georges, and takes Vosne’s silken elegance in that more robust direction.

More animal and mineral than fruity, this wine needs long exposure to air for the detail in its gentle tannins to become apparent. There’s a cherry-leaf greenness to the black-cherry flavor, turning toward smoke and gravel as the structure takes shape. For the cellar.

This negociant firm, owned by the Boisset family since 1993, produced an impressively fresh Meursault Porusot in 2015. Some of our tasters objected to the oak influence, which one found sawdusty, while others found it appropriately nutty, with baking-spice flavors to accent the apple and fennel flavors. The texture is round and sapid, making this a wine for roast veal.

North of Clos de Vougeot, close to the village and the Vouge, the stream that gives the village its name, this two acres of chardonnay on pebbly limestone produced a juicy 2015 with flavors of fresh-cut pear. It expands from lean to opulent, finding a sweet and salty balance. Not as long-lived as Le Clos Blanc, this should be ready to drink after a year or two in the cellar.

This has the smooth feel of stones polished in a tumbler, the wine savory and meaty, the texture opulent. A spark of acidity brings out notes of orange pith to balance a hint of nutty, nougat-like sweetness, all of it held with firm elasticity to the structure.

This is an expansive, vibrantly alive and buzzy white that’s floral in apple and orange blossom aromas. Its freshness is complemented by richer deeper undertones of baked quince and tangerine, with a gravelly stony quality to the texture that makes it hard to resist. 

From a site situated at 900-feet in elevation and located blissfully close to the coast, this vineyard-designate is intensely salty and briny, in firm grasp of stony mineral characteristics. With a depth and breadth of full-bodied concentration, it’s complex and layered in Gravenstein apple and pear, the aromas a mix of honeysuckle and apple blossom. 

Heady aromatics pierce through a full-figured sensibility of oak and body in this well-made wine—a partnership between the winery and musician John Legend. A gritty texture makes way for a length of baked pineapple and pear decadence that lingers effortlessly on the palate.