Belland Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Pitois red 2019

Roger and Julie Belland are 5th and 6th generation growers in Santenay – their wines are perennial favorites among our readers, offering early drinking and friendly pricetags. Belland’s 2019s are magnificent, as classy and supple as anything they’ve produced.

The 2019 Pitois rouge shows dense supporting structure that needs some time for integration with the other elements: dark currant fruit, spice, earthy minerals, and a nicely balanced dose of oak. This is serious wine, more dry than juicy, and in a few years it should provide a wonderful accompaniment for all manner of roasts, steaks, and chops of beef, pork and veal. Jasper Morris found it “particularly intense” with “light cocoa powder on the red fruit.”