The tricky part about Burgundy’s traditional hierarchy is that it doesn’t account for talent. It also doesn’t account for how subtle the distinctions can be in this the most meticulously mapped of wine regions. The lower-ranked, lesser-known Rully appellation—one of the key wine towns of the lower-ranked, lesser-known Côte Chalonnaise—is about 11 kilometers due south of Puligny-Montrachet.
Its vineyards share similar aspect and geology to those of Puligny, but not the same reputation. No doubt Vincent Dureuil, maker of this wine, sees his native Rully as more than a second-tier appellation—but, just to be sure, he added his considerable talent and dogged determination to the equation. His wines are inevitably the first ones mentioned in any discussion of Rully, and have at this point shed the “over-achiever” label and become sought-after commodities in their own right. They’re not just “good…for a Rully.” They’re good, period. This 2014 is a striking introduction to this rising (risen?) Burgundy star.
Vincent Dureuil is only in his mid-thirties, and his wünderkind reputation is hard-earned; he is said to log long days in his vineyards, doing much of the work himself, and since the mid-2000s the farm has been practicing organic (there’s no ‘official’ certification on labels, however). Although Rully is known as more of a white wine appellation, Dureuil has shown a deft touch with both whites and reds: his 42 acres of vineyard holdings include pieces of many Rully Premier Crus, and even this ‘village-level’ wine boasts fruit from 50+-year-old vines. His whites are whole-cluster pressed and fermented using only the ambient yeasts present on the grapes when they arrive at the winery. In keeping with his fastidiousness in the vineyards, he seeks to minimize the use of sulfur both during fermentation and at bottling—the health of his grapes enables him to do so.