From: Burgundy, France
Varietal: Chardonnay
Tasting Notes and Critical Acclaim: Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy. These ancient vines are still delivering. This is pale in colour with a touch of reduction. After a light grapefruit inflection at first, there is a beautiful white fruit intensity, all the way though, lifted by riper notes at the end, excellent acid balance and very long. Superb. Drink from 2028-2037. Tasted: October 2023.
90-92 Burghound - A more floral array of white orchard fruit, including a whiff of passion fruit, just sliced fennel and an interesting hint of exotic tea is trimmed in moderate oak. The dense, delicious and caressing medium-bodied flavors possess a gorgeous texture, all wrapped in a bone-dry, tightly wound and striking long finale marked by prominent citrus elements. This is an excellent Meursault villages and worth considering.
Pairing: This focused, precise, and tension-filled Meursault plays well with dishes like roast chicken or turkey, veal, rabbit in mustard sauce (check out a slight twist on this theme below; we’re sharing a classic recipe for pork chops with Dijon sauce), grilled or sautéed shrimp, white fish like cod or sea bass, and even smoked trout or salmon. Lemony shrimp and bean stew, halibut with brown butter, lemon, and sage, seared halibut with anchovies, capers, and garlic, or monkfish with caper butter are some delish pairing ideas to get you started. Other examples include sheet-pan tarragon chicken with onions, Hainanese chicken and rice, or sheet-pan chicken with apple, fennel, and onion.
Pork Chops With Dijon Sauce
By Julia Reed
About. Perhaps more than any of his peers, Fichet is testing the limits of transparency, to find the very soul of Meursault’s terroirs. It was Meursault’s destiny to have its soils revealed in this way: their intense stoniness is magnified by an exceptionally low water table, forcing the vines’ roots deep underground. Even if uneconomical, Fichet would rather produce a very small amount of wine from his best sites than to lose their unique character in a blend. Fichet has flown largely under the world’s radar. He began as a grower in 1981 but was forced to rebuild his domaine from scratch in the 1990s, having lost all his best fruit sources—including a piece of Meursault-Perrières—for lack of long-term contracts. But he learned from this experience. By 2000, he had used carefully negotiated long-term fermage and mètayage agreements to create an extraordinary new domaine, brimming with exceptional sites. Fichet’s methods reflect his philosophy: he is famously meticulous and abhors taking short cuts. His low yields, the foremost key to quality, are achieved through severe winter pruning rather than by green harvesting. And he believes his wines’ expressiveness is enhanced through a patient 18-month élevage, with little new oak and by avoiding aggressive lees stirring.
This wine. “Gruyaches” - Gruyaches is a small plot of 77-year-old vines enclosed on two sides by Meursault-Charmes. This is the richest and fullest of the Fichet lieux-dits, yet it shares their common focus, minerality and length.
Vineyard: A small parcel of 80-year-old vines at the base of Charmes. Fichet added drainage in the late 1990s to limit vigor.
Soil: clay-limestone
Viticulture: Viticulture is “lutte raisonée” (reasoned organic). Jean-Philippe aims to know his vines, and to work with them to find a healthy equilibrium. Grapes are hand-harvested.
Vinification: Fermentations take place in barrel and wine goes through malo in barrel. Aging: 12+ months in barrel (1/6 new), plus 3-6 months in tank
