Domaine Larue, Chassagne Montrachet 2023

A beautiful wine that is loaded with flavours: blossom, acacia, honeysuckle, citrus and ripe apples that lead to hazelnut, light toast and fresh butter. The palate is fleshy but mineral and flinty and, as it begins to age, will develop more ripeness of fruit characteristics and a mellowing of the body, becoming mellower and broader still.

Chassagne Montrachet is a village that is home to the best white wines in the world. Together with Puligny Montrachet, the vineyards here are extremely highly-coveted and on account of the variety of soil types and vineyard aspect, they can produce wines of extraordinary difference, identity and quality. The crown of the two villages is the hill of Montrachet which fittingly straddles the two villages and is home to the five Grand Crus. Chassange is sometimes considered to be a lesser village, but this is not the case - it's just different. While Puligny produces some reds, these have to be classified as Cotes de Beaune Villages, whereas 30% of Chassagne's vines are red and a third of these are 1er Crus. It's certainly diverse, but what it also is, is extremely good.

The Larue winery is based to the west of Chassagne Montrachet, in Saint Aubin. From here the four family members (brothers Denis and Didier and their sons, cousins Bruno and Vivien) farm 17 hectares of vines across the Côtes de Beaune, from Chassagne in the south to Aloxe Corton at the north, they are a family who make wines with incredible confidence and precision. 

Interestingly, they only make wines from their own grapes: in Burgundy this is a big deal because it shows that they don't do what many, many other producers do, which is buy in grapes from other growers to meet the demand. This happens a lot. In a sense it's hardly surprising given the massive demand and static availability of grapes. But the quality that comes from a family who look after the wine making process from vine planting to bottle labelling is satisfyingly high. And it does make us look for Domaine-made and bottled wines first...

So, this then is the real deal of fine white Burgundy. Grapes grown here are from vines up to 40 years old in a village that only has a total of 53 hectares. Clayey-limestone soils and an east-facing exposure help with coolness and aromatic quality. Traditionally made and aged, they are of the more conservative style of the village, but that's not a bad thing, when you're talking about an historic precedent of the best in the world.