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The Viré-Clessé Vieilles Vignes is produced exclusively from vines that are 75 to 90 years old. The grapes are hand harvested and fermented on the ambient, natural yeast, and the wine is matured for 24 months in a mix of stainless steel and oak barrels, 15% of which are new. The result is a wine that sings in a good large glass (this luminous pale gold Chardonnay is Burgundy, after all, and a textbook example of how fine wine evolves after it’s poured). Ripe Bartlett pears, almond blossoms, fresh cream, and raw honeycomb move in and out of the foreground, sometimes alternating with pineapple, honeysuckle, and acacia as the nose evolves over time.
On the palate, the wine is creamy and expansive, with limestone-infused Chardonnay flavors that echo the nose, adding nutmeg, hazelnuts, candied almonds, and fleeting suggestions of fresh ginger and thyme, all delivered with racy, almost Riesling-like clarity and length. Drink now – 2030.
About this wine producer: When André Bonhomme took over the family vineyards in 1956, he immediately quit selling the grapes in bulk to the local cooperative, exasperating his father, and alienating his neighbors. Setting out to bottle his own wine meant investing in winery equipment, buying bottles and corks, and finding his own customers. But being the first estate-bottler in the Maconnais had a long-term advantage: he was able to get a good, first-hand look at individual wines from unique vineyard sites, and by experiment to learn which vineyards produced the best grapes. By selling his wine in bottle rather than in bulk he was able to earn enough to quietly assemble a patchwork of the best vineyards in the region. Aurélien Palthey, André Bonhomme’s grandson, is the current director of the domaine, and he holds the reins of a cultural monument – one of the greatest estates in Burgundy.
$34.20