Author: Thomas Wilcox

Vincent Boyer and his sister Sophie are the winemakers at Boyer-Martenot, a gem of an estate in Meursault. They farm a mouthwatering collection of vines in and around Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet, including all three famous Meursault premier crus. They farm organically, and use a long elevage in barrels then concrete eggs to give their wines a regal depth and complexity. These are some of our favorite white Burgundies from anywhere.

Boyer’s mouthwatering collection of vines at the premier cru level has produced another exquisite trio in 2022. From the ultimate Meursault trifecta of top vineyards – Charmes, Genevrières, and Perrieres – Vincent makes tiny quantities of extraordinary wine. Today we’re focused on Charmes, the richest and friendliest of the bunch.

Boyer’s Meursault 1er cru “Charmes” simply beautiful – bursting, luxurious, old school Meursault. The nose is deeply floral with notes of pear and stones. The mouth is fresher and more vibrant than usual this year, with a touch of sucrocité balanced on a beam of tension. Burghound similarly found “excellent energy” and a “tension-filled, linear finish.” Vincent told us last year the 2022s would be “difficult to resist,” and boy was he right. This cuvée has the density to age another 5 years or so, but it’s a real treat today.

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Boyer-Martenot Meursault 1er “Charmes” 2022
bottle price: $185

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In real estate and winemaking, location is everything – and nowhere is this more true than in Burgundy. A few yards difference in vine location can amount to a few extra zeros on the end of the price. Every wine from Vosne-Romanée – the most famous winemaking town in the world – is at minimum worthy of interest. But Vosne is not a monolith, and each corner of the tiny appellation has its own expression.

Nearly all the slopes in Vosne (and Burgundy for that matter) face some combination of East and South. But today’s wine comes from an unusual North-facing plot, and this fact defines its identity. “Les Barreaux” lies atop the slope in Vosne, adjoining the Grand Cru Richebourg and the Premier Crus Aux Brûlées and Henri Jayer’s famous “Cros Parantoux.” The view is spectacular, but the wine is somehow even better.

Barreaux’s northern exposition has historically been a limitation, and likely why it’s classified at the village level – the less sunny slope has made it hard to ripen fully. But in the new normal of hot, dry growing seasons, this exposition has become an asset. And in 2020, it’s produced something spectacular.

This wine blew us away when we first tasted it, and it’s only gotten better – impossibly fine and delicate, but with density and length. The shallow limestone soil and unusual exposition balance the extreme ripeness of the vintage, and the resulting wine is a masterpiece. Jasper Morris MW had a similar reaction – he gave it 5/5 stars and awarded it 93-95 points, finding “vibrant deep red fruit” and “very good acidity as well.” it “really quite a striking Vosne-Romanée,” with “superb length.” We agree – for anyone with a taste for the magic of Vosne, this is not a wine to be missed.

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Couvent Vosne-Romanée “Barreaux” 2020
bottle price: $125

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In recent years the Northern Rhône valley has become a source of unusual value. As prices in Burgundy have skyrocketed, and prices in Bordeaux have whipsawed back and forth, Côte Rôtie and Cornas have maintained a steady, modest rise. The wines have never been better, and suddenly they seem like bargains.

Take today’s wine – Patrick and Christophe Bonnefond’s 2020 Côte Rôtie “Rochins.” On a whim we opened a bottle this week with a pot roast, and it knocked our socks off. In complexity, layers, and depth, it easily competes with a premier cru from the Côte de Nuits – the meaty character reminded us of an old-vine Nuits-St-Georges. Those mostly run $120-$150 these days; while not exactly a by-the-glass candidate, Bonnefond’s Rochins doesn’t even crack $80.

Rochins comes from 60+ year old vines in a parcel just next to the famous Côte Blonde and Côte Brune. The nose is dark and woodsy with an irresistible mixture of spices, wild cherries, smoke and violets. The mouth is velvety and beautiful, still with plenty of material but beginning to put on a smooth patina now five years after harvest. It’s gotten pretty chilly here in Boston over the last few weeks – this wine is as cozy as a warm winter blanket.

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Bonnefond Côte Rôtie “Rochins” 2020
bottle price: $78

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Châteauneuf-du-Pape is one of the most recognizable brands in wine. Made famous by French popes in the 14th century, and then again by Robert Parker in the 1980s, the appellation’s place on the winemaking map is well established. For decades the wine from Châteauneuf was head and shoulders above the rest of the Southern Rhône – but these days it’s got company.

There’s loads of great wine coming from the Southern Rhône these days, but no star is brighter than Gigondas. The Chastan family has been making wine in the same style for a hundred years. They were among the earliest in the region to farm organically (they were certified in 1980!), and their winemaking is simple and straightforward. Vinification for all the wines is cement vats, followed by an elevage in either vats or neutral oak foudres. The wines are all whole-cluster, and neither fined nor filtered.

We’ve just restocked on their 2020 Gigondas, a wine that has gone from delicious to extraordinary over the last five years in the bottle. It is silky smooth and rich, with dense, sweet fruit and notes of allspice. Though velvety and rich, there is good underlying structure and a bit of earthiness in the finish. A dose of salinity balances the lush fruit, and the finish goes on forever without an ounce of heaviness. This would blow away many a Châteauneuf-du-Pape in a blind tasting, and given its sub-$50 price we think it’s also a steal.

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Joncuas Gigondas 2020
bottle price: $49

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Our visit to the Domaine Pierre André this year was a sad one, coming just a few months after Jacqueline Andre died of a sudden illness. Her father was a pioneer in organic viticulture, having decided in 1965 that chemicals were bad for his vines and having abandoned all of them altogether. Jacqueline was proud to have inherited and to tend vines that were up to 145 years old. The domaine was certified organic in the early nineteen eighties – among the first anywhere – and for many decades Jacqueline quietly carried on her family’s great tradition.

The 2022 vintage of her red Chateauneuf du Pape is the last that she saw all the way through to bottling, and no surprise, it is gorgeous. Like a few other great winemakers of her era, Jacqueline made a single cuvée of red wine, blending in all the wine from patches of terroir across the appellation.

The 2022 is outstanding – as always, the nose is expressive, showing the wild strawberry fruit of the dominant Grenache, as well as floral notes of violet and maybe a touch of licorice. The weight is medium, with just enough structure and an exceptionally long finish that completes this strikingly elegant wine. André was a master of channeling rich southern grapes in wines of poise and class, and the 2022 is a remarkable achievement.

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André Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2022
bottle price: $68

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Sofie Borhmann is a bit of an anomaly in Burgundy. She’s not French (she’s from Belgium), not well known, and exports very little to the US. In a tiny region with exploding demand and skyrocketing prices, her wines are quiet, well priced, and relatively unknown. We found them on a restaurant list in Beaune, and after some persistence managed to track her down.

It was worth the effort – her wines have become favorites among many of our readers for their clarity, meticulous oaking, and excellent pricing. Most of her wines in our portfolio are whites, but her reds – particularly today’s Bourgogne rouge – are terrific as well. The just-arrived 2023 is her best yet.

Borhmann’s Bourgogne vines are across the RN-74 from Pommard. At 35 years old, they’re more mature than many Bourgogne-level vines, and their fruit produces a wine of real complexity. She uses 70% whole clusters, giving the wines excellent definition and exquisite tension.

The nose shows seductive, crushed ripe red fruits, overlaid with a soft floral character – an unmistakably Côte de Beaune profile. The mouth is perfectly ripe, smooth, and delicious, with fine chalky tannin supporting the bursting fruit. The 2023s possess an extraordinary balance of fruit, tension, and texture – the bottle on our Thanksgiving table evaporated with haste.

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Bohrmann Bourgogne Côte d’Or rouge 2023
bottle price: $45

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Romain Collet is one of the most exciting talents in our portfolio. He’s the energetic and innovative grandson of Jean Collet, the domaine’s founder. He experiments with all of today’s means of elevage, so a visitor to the cellars now walks past not only stainless steel tanks and large oak foudres, but also cement eggs, clay amphoras, and barrels of all sizes, from traditional Burgundian to demi-muids holding 400 or 500 liters.

Today we’re focused on his Chablis 1er cru cuvée from “Forêts,” a terroir made famous by Dauvissat’s iconic cuvée. Romain uses large concrete eggs for his Forêts cuvée, and the wine has a smoothed layer of fruit over the piercing Chablis acidity. The resulting wine is dry, dynamic and delicious, at once mouthfilling and bursting with saline and zip.

The just-arrived 2023 is terrific. It’s packed with yellow fruit and oyster shells – for the next few months we expect a dose of lemon cream atop the concentrated flavors. Down the road it should dry out and focus; the eggs mean there’s a subtle gras amid the dry extract, and the combination is delicious and mouthwatering. Jasper Morris found it “promising” with a note of “fresh licorice,” and writes “I expect it to develop well from here.”

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Collet Chablis 1er cru “Forêts” 2023
bottle price: $45

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The 2022 red Burgundies are shaping up to be an extraordinary vintage. Expectations were high from the start: “beautiful and bountiful… very good wines and plenty of them” wrote Jasper Morris. William Kelley called them on release “succulent, suave and charming.” The last year of tasting them in our homes and at the warehouse has confirmed – this is an all around terrific vintage.

The fruit is modern and ripe, the result of a very hot, very dry growing season. And yet the wines show impeccable balance, with low alcohols and excellent freshness. Roger Belland’s 2022 reds are some of the best he’s made, coinciding with a shift in winemaking style: they’ve dialed back the oak, extended elevage, added whole clusters.

The Santenay 1er cru “Beauregard” 2022 is simply delicious, and just getting started. Tasting just after bottling, Burghound noted “fine richness…suave and succulent flavors…could be enjoyed young but has the stuffing to replay up to a decade of keeping.” Over the past two years months in the bottle its youthful red fruits have mellowed a tad, and the palate has deepened and softened a beat or two. It’s still youthful and fresh, and we think it’s in a terrific maturity window today.

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Belland Santenay 1er rouge “Beauregard” 2022
bottle price: $54

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Amid a trend of rising prices across Burgundy, Chablis has maintained its place as a consistent source of value. Even Grand Crus from top tier producers still rarely break the $100/bottle mark. Of the forty premier cru vineyards across the appellation of Chablis, Montée de Tonnerre is undisputedly the finest and most prestigious. As wine writer Rajat Parr puts it, Montée de Tonnerre “produces at Grand Cru status, but still goes for Premier Cru prices.”

Romain Collet’s 2023 Chablis 1er “Montée de Tonnerre” provides terrific value. It’s one of his most impressive cuvées – regal, refined, complex and vibrant. He’s got exceptional terroir, and he knows how to use it. There’s everything at once – richness, depth, stoniness, length, and polish.

Jasper Morris found that “white clay with plenty of stones lend it some Left Bank minerality, but the superb exposure of the hillside allows the Right Bank richness of fruit to dominate.” We think Collet’s 2023 Montée de Tonnerre shows the completeness for which the vineyard is famous. Serve this with a fine dish from the sea – lobster, scallops, branzino, dover sole, swordfish, etc.

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Collet Chablis 1er cru “Montée de Tonnerre” 2023
bottle price: $49

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We were thrilled to welcome Domaine Christian Clerget back into the Ansonia portfolio last year. Thirtysomething Justine Clerget (Christian’s daughter) is now in charge, and has brought renewed energy, refined techniques, and a passion for organic viticulture. The Clerget wines were always classical, terroir-transparent, old school red Burgundy; Justine has maintained this spirit but added polish and class.

This tiny gem of a domaine has always been a favorite of ours – from their winery in Vougeot (population 174) they farm 6 hectares (14 acres) of average 60 year-old vines across eight appellations. Clerget’s wines have made many friends at our depot tastings this year, often winning tastings’ “wine of the day” award. We’ve just restocked stock from the exceptional 2022 vintage, and none is more exciting than their village-level Chambolle-Musigny.

The Chambolle is a blend from six different plots around the town, and shows the village’s classic silky, seductive nature. Neal Martin gave 90-92 points, praising its “sense of vibrancy and tension” on a “very well-controlled and persistent finish,” concluding “this is worth seeking out.” This is a wine of perfume, elegance, and grace, but with real density from the hot, dry summer – we think it punches above its village weight.

We’ve got lots of tasty, affordable wines to suggest for Thanksgiving, but if you’re in need of an upgrade this one would be a showstopper.

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Clerget Chambolle-Musigny 2022
bottle price: $99

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Sofie Bohrmann summed up the 2022 growing season with one word: “parfait.” After the catastrophic 2021 vintage, in which some of her parcels lost over 90% of their crop, 2022 provided clean, healthy grapes, and plenty of them. It was hot and dry as it always is these days, but rain fell at exactly the right time – a bit of good luck after a season of bad.

We’ve long loved the terroirs of St-Aubin, and are pleased to see them increasingly receiving their due – even if it’s meant they’re scarcer and pricier. We have several producers who farm here, but our favorite is Domaine Bohrmann. Bohrmann’s style is low oak, pure fruit, and exquisitely balanced texture: richness, depth and energy all at once. Raised in only 15% new oak for a year, their St-Aubin 1er cru comes from “En Remilly,” considered one of the town’s top vineyards.

The 2022 is outstanding – lively and generous at the same time. It’s thick and full of a rippling intensity, combining perfectly ripe golden fruit with structure and minerality. There’s precision capable of enhancing your most refined dishes — sole meuniere, for example. The use of oak is perfect: support for the minerals and fruit, but without too much spice or toast.

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Bohrmann St-Aubin 1er “En Remilly” 2022
bottle price: $72

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The wines of Margaux are some of the most celebrated in Bordeaux, admired for their unique blend of finesse and power. The soils are light and thin, full of gravel, sand and limestone, and the resulting wines combine Left-Bank muscle with an exquisite finesse and perfume.

Our latest arrival from Margaux is the Baron de Brane, the second wine of the prestigious second-growth estate Brane-Cantenac. The 2018 is simply beautiful, landing just in time for summer grilling season. This is 60% Merlot, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Cabernet Franc and Carménère.

Jeb Dunnuck writes “Another beautiful second wine…a rounded, sexy profile as well as terrific notes of blackcurrants, spice box, and earth, with hints of graphite.” The nose high toned silky character of classic Margaux that’s somehow both elegant and muscular. The mouth is no slouch though, with an extremely well balanced mouthfeel showing graphite, earth, cassis and an old-school weight and shape. Serve with something wintery.

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Baron de Brane Margaux 2018
bottle price: $55

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The Loire Valley continues to be the epicenter of modern of French winemaking. As other regions struggle with unusually warm summers, the Loire has become a reliable place for freshness and balance, a result of a cooler climate and a dedicated organic viticulture.

Winemakers Celine and Didier Sanzay are fifth generation growers in Saumur-Champigny.. Their wines are pure Cabernet Franc, and fit modern style — small batch, organic, limited oak, concerned with balance and freshness rather than extraction and muscle. They use all wild yeasts, neither fine nor filter, and produce subtle, natural expressions of the charming central Loire.

Sanzay’s regular cuvée of Saumur-Champigny is terrific — well priced and bursting with vibrant Cab Franc fruit. But today we’re suggesting their old-vine cuvée, a step up in intensity, longevity, and depth. It’s made from vines aged 50-110 years, and spends a year in large barrels (none new). The nose is delicate and pretty, with violets, plums, and red currants. The mouth is dense and very refined, with added notes of plum, allspice and black pepper.

This is expertly made Cabernet Franc, full of intensity, balance, and vibrant energy. It was the surprise hit at our Mushroomfest tasting over the weekend, and will fit our autumn dinner table with style.

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Sanzay Saumur-Champigny VV 2022
bottle price: $28

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In his book “The New French Wine” Jon Bonné writes that Jacqueline André’s wines “are about old-fashioned subtlety,” crediting her with “quietly upholding the extraordinary quality of her family’s domaine.” André is fully worthy of this praise, and it’s never been clearer than today.

Truly great winemakers show their greatness most clearly in difficult vintages, and Jacqueline André’s 2021 results put her in that class. The 2021 growing season brought challenges of biblical proportions, with damaging frost and hail in April, followed by serial heat waves, followed by late season rains. All of this dramatically reduced yields and threw off harvest schedules.

But despite the challenges of 2021, Jacqueline André has made an elegant and absolutely delicious wine. Consonant with the dictates of the year, her Chateauneuf du Pape rouge 2021 is a wine of medium weight and mild tannins rather than huge density. Grenache always dominates the fruit in her wine, but in 2021 the distinct aromas of dried rose petals join the usual sweet wild strawberries to produce a refined and elegant glass of wine that is strikingly good.

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André Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2021
bottle price:$65

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Sablet is a classic Southern Rhône town. Its 9th century streets are home to just 1400 residents, a couple of boulangeries, and a handful of restaurants and wineries. Winemaker Eric Chauvin is a Sablet native (also a volunteer firefighter), and it’s also the location of his tiny excellent Domaine le Souverain. His organic, balanced, extremely well-priced red Rhônes have become an everyday delight for many readers.

Souverain’s 2023 Séguret is perhaps their best yet. Dark, inky berry fruit explodes from the glass, and on the palate the wine pulsates with life and energy. Eric credits careful organic viticulture with his success and we don’t doubt him. The nose both fresh and intense,  with notes of crushed berries, lavender, and a cool earthiness. The mouth is smooth, friendly, and refreshing – clean dark fruit, just the right amount of tannin, and a smooth, easy finish.

Rhône blends are a dime a dozen these days, but rarely are they this packed with flavor, this well balanced, and this reasonably priced. Your autumn house red has arrived.

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Souverain Séguret 2023
bottle price: $22

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