Tasting today’s exquisite Puligny-Montrachet, I thought to myself: This isn’t winemaking, this is mining. As in, excavating rock to extract a gemstone. Yes, I know we throw around this kind of imagery a lot when talking about white Burgundy, but it is especially apt as applied to the Premier Cru “La Garenne” vineyard in the Puligny-Montrachet hamlet of Blagny, at the edge of the forest.
Rock-strewn and windswept, La Garenne resembles a quarry, and the Chardonnays that spring from it are some of the most archetypal Puligny-Montrachet wines of all: crystalline, balletic, mesmerizing. Leave it to Remoissenet to get in on this action: This historic négociant house has become one of the most dynamic players in Burgundy, pouring resources and talent into viticulture throughout the region. Working closely with a partner-grower in La Garenne that farms the parcel according to organic and biodynamic principles, Remoissenet extracted a micro-batch of today’s 2017 from the pebbly limestone of this coveted Premier Cru. They shared a tiny amount with us, but only enough to offer four bottles per customer today: When the occasion calls for Burgundy’s crème de la crème, this is a bottle to pull!
Remoissenet continues to be a Burgundy treasure trove for us: Not only have we gotten access to some incredible back-vintage bottlings from the ’60s and ’70s (shipped directly from their catacomb-like caves in Beaune), they’ve given us dibs on their most prestigious and limited new releases, like today’s ’17. Run by an all-star team of passionate Burgundy experts and drawing on deep resources, Remoissenet can not only afford to seek out the best but devotes most of those resources to agriculture. It’s not just about making great wine; it’s about sustaining and improving iconic sites like La Garenne, one of the most recognizable Premier Crus in the Puligny-Montrachet AOC.
La Garenne is perched at the top of the slope above Puligny, as the vineyards climb to the edge of the forest near Blagny and Saint-Aubin. The topsoil here is extremely thin and strewn with limestone rocks, with vines burrowing deep into the limestone “mother rock” below. Remoissenet sources its La Garenne fruit from a small parcel of 20-40-year-old vines, harvesting it by hand and fermenting it on indigenous yeasts in French oak barrels (35% new) of assorted sizes. The wine is aged in those same barrels for about a year before bottling.
The 2017 vintage in Burgundy was generous in both quality and quantity, and, as has been typical of new-release wines from Remoissenet, this Puligny has an aristocratic gloss to it; there’s no doubt you’re in the presence of something serious when you put your nose in the glass, and considering the level at which this wine performs, I’d characterize the price as a steal. This is everything you could ask for in elite Puligny-Montrachet—and exactly the kind of racy, laser-focused Chardonnay one would expect from this high-altitude site. In the glass, it’s a glistening yellow-gold moving to green highlights at the rim, with a perfumed nose of white peach, green and yellow apple, lemon blossom, cheese rind, yogurt, chopped almonds, white flowers, and rain-soaked stones. Medium-plus in body, with good fruit concentration on the mid-palate that will deepen with time, this absolutely pulses with the kind of energy and tension Puligny-Montrachet is famous for. It’s an archetype that will reward cellaring over the next 10-15 years and will thrill now as well given about 45 minutes in a decanter first. Serve it at 50 degrees in all-purpose whites (or larger Burgundy stems) with a suitably luxurious seafood preparation—and who better to ask than Le Bernardin Chef Eric Ripert? Try the attached recipe when it’s time to pull the cork on this special bottle. Enjoy!
