The Mâconnais has the SommSelect team excited like nowhere else in Burgundy. For most of my career, you settled for a Mâcon Chardonnay because you couldn’t afford, or didn’t want to pay for, the Côte de Beaune but the contemporary landscape has changed: Trouillet-Lebeau’s Pouilly-Vinzelles “Les Quarts” proves the days of settling are long gone!
This lush yet classically structured white Burgundy confirms that the Mâconnais can be a dinnertime centerpiece alongside blockbusters like Meursault, Puligny, and Chassagne. Except, this will cost you less than $40, all while coming from (1) a respected century-old domaine and (2) one of the best climats in Pouilly-Vinzelles. So, no, this bottle isn’t a case of “settling” for something affordable—it’s a case of essentially doubling your money because the market hasn’t caught up to reality. Here’s your chance to have genuinely great white Burgundy, every night of the week!
Pretty much any picture of Mâcon vineyards you can find will have the Rock of Solutré looming in the background. This geological oddity, a massive limestone escarpment jutting up from the surrounding hills, serves as the literal bedrock for the best vineyards in the Mâcon. It’s no surprise, then, that the cellar of Trouillet-Lebeau sits directly below it. The estate began over 100 years ago when Jean Guérin took over four hectares he’d previously sharecropped. Now, four generations later, the estate has grown to 20ha, with prime holdings in the Mâcon’s most famed villages: Fuissé, Loché, and Vinzelles.
As I mentioned, until recently, the Mâcon was more or less an afterthought in most sommeliers’ minds. While the soils are a clay-limestone mixture similar to the Côte d’Or’s, the region’s more open and flatter vineyards have historically produced wines that emphasize fruit and early drinking at the expense of mineral complexity and age-worthiness. Mâcon wines were enjoyable and easygoing, but they weren’t “real” Burgundy. A genuine revolution in quality has taken root here, though. A bottle of contemporary Mâconnais white by a determined producer like Trouillet-Lebeau in a blind lineup is likely to fool even the most seasoned of white Burgundy drinkers into thinking it’s top Côte d’Or juice. Another reason is the source of today’s wine: “Les Quarts,” in Pouilly-Vinzelles. Even before the Mâcon started turning heads, this east-facing slope—planted with Chardonnay vines (~80 years old) atop stony limestone and iron oxide soils derived from the Rock of Solutré—was known to produce the most powerful and longest-lived bottles in the village. Imagine what a bottle with that sort of pedigree would cost if it’s source material was located a bit farther north!
Treat Trouillet-Lebeau’s “Les Quarts” as you would any great white Burgundy, chilled to 50 degrees and served in Burgundy stems. It pours a shimmering yellow with flecks of silver, and the nose roars out of the glass with white peach, ripe apricot, Meyer lemon, crisp red apple skin, green melon flesh, powdery white florals, pulverized limestone, and a discreet touch of oak spice. The accessible and fruit-powered 2018 vintage lends some serious weight to the palate, but a refreshing cut of acid and taut mineral presence gestures toward Chassagne in its persistence and cut. A weeknight fish dish like panfried trout with almonds is the perfect accompaniment to this sneakily complex everyday-priced marvel. This is a bottle to convince any Burgundy snob where the real excitement in the region is right now, and I’ll be proselytizing for it every time I get the chance. At this price, get on board, and start popping bottles for anyone who’ll listen!
