But no matter the year, Pillot doesn’t miss the mark, ever, and we’ve learned that his slice of 70-year-old vines in “Les Vergers” best showcases his full arsenal of talents. So imagine our heartache when Pillot told Vinous Media’s Stephen Tanzer that he had made “...virtually no Chenevottes or Vergers” in 2016! Miraculously, we managed to score a few cases, so do yourself one of the greatest wine favors imaginable and discover what all the excitement is about. The praise—and subsequent demand—for this wine is very high, so don’t delay!

Pillot’s whites balance impressive soil character and electric minerality with vivid, pure fruit. They epitomize the Chassagne-Montrachet terroir while offering remarkable approachability in their youth and impressive complexity and evolution after even modest cellar aging. We love these wines, our customers love these wines, and the only challenge with Pillot is summoning the willpower to sell our meager allocation instead of shuttling it into our personal cellars. 

Jean-Marc Pillot is the fourth consecutive generation of his family to be involved in winemaking. He began apprenticing directly beneath his father, Jean, in 1985. By 1991, he had assumed leadership of the family property, though he is assisted in numerous regards by his wife, Nadine, and sister, Beatrice. Pillot owns and farms a dizzying diversity of Premier and Grand Cru vineyards in the villages of Santenay, Puligny, Meursault, Montagny, and Remigny. 

Still, there is little debate that the family’s finest wines originate from their ample Premier Cru Chassagne-Montrachet holdings. This wine originates from Pillot’s tiny half-hectare parcel in Les Vergers, a site whose steep, shallow soils are renowned for producing Chassagne-Montrachet of notable finesse and focus. The sub-parcel of Les Vergers that Pillot works was planted in 1949 and is farmed 100% organically. 

The Pillot family harvests “Les Vergers” by hand and their grapes ferment in 90% neutral and 10% new French oak barrels. Following fermentation, the wine is aged on its fine lees for a year, before being racked into stainless steel tanks, where it rests for an additional six months. This patient, time-consuming approach means Pillot does not need to filter or cold-stabilize his whites, so they always retain a certain vividness and dimension that is missing from many neighbors’ wines. 

Pillot’s 2016 “Les Vergers” shines a brilliant yellow with silver and vivid green reflections. Salted lemon, white peach, and yellow apples ease right into a luscious core of limestone and crushed-rock minerality that radiates with citrus blossoms and myriad white/yellow flowers. The heavily curtailed vintage didn’t affect one ounce of this wine. Its aromas are enticingly seductive and the palate shines with brilliant energy and plush, fleshy fruit. The accessibility or ‘openness’ of the wine is always what gives Pillot its distinction: As long as it’s properly served, this provides every luscious fruit and tension-filled mineral that comes with the best white Burgundy—whether enjoying now or in 10+ years! If doing the former (there’s no harm whatsoever), serve in large Burgundy stems around 55 degrees after a 60-minute decant. Show it off next to a couple of your wine connoisseur friends and a flashy lobster pasta in a rich, herbed cream sauce. Prepare for a standing ovation because this is authentic Chassagne-Montrachet of the highest order.