2021 Bourgogne Blanc

For Michel Mallard, splitting time between Domaine d’Eugénie and his family estate in Ladoix cannot be easy and is probably going to get trickier: the former will absorb new holdings from Artémis’s acquisition of Bouchard Père. You need a lot of energy; in terms of that, Mallard is not in short supply. “There was much more sorting in 2023 than 2022,” he tells me as various family members and his menagerie of pets seem to wander by behind him. “I am surprised by 2022. It was the warmest, up to 40° Celsius, twice with less than 10mm of water during the summer except for the end of June, and that saved the vintage. Otherwise, it could have been like 2020. These wines have more elegance and length, and I think 2022 will be more approachable. We picked from August 27 and over the next nine days. I will do less extraction in 2020 than in 2022, just changing the whole bunches, for example, up to 80% for the Corton Grand Crus [see tasting notes for percentages]. It was relatively easy because there was excess from one site to the other, unlike 2020 or 2021. The alcohol is from 13.0% to 13.5% with good balance.” It is a fine set of wines here. Ladoix is always overlooked, but wines like the La Corvée demonstrated what it can achieve in the right hands, and evinces very clever use of whole bunches (Mallard is a dab hand at this.) Look out for the Aloxe-Corton Les Marechaudes and La Toppe Au Vert, which should both represent good value. Of his three Cortons, I felt that Le Rognet has the edge this vintage with Les Renardes close on its tail and, who knows, might surpass it with bottle age.

Michel Mallard usually lights a log fire whenever I visit his winery in Ladoix, but such is the unseasonal October warmth that there is no need. Mallard is always forthright with his opinions, and it is always great to chew the fat about the current state of Burgundy. He has an almost combative approach to the 2021 vintage, an unwillingness to bow down and be compromised. That doesn’t imply his volumes did not suffer. “I lost 70% of the whites,” he tells me. “I picked on 17 September, which is quite early compared to others. I used whole clusters as they bought more structure to the wines, and there is 50% in the Premier Cru. [This compared to other winemakers, some of which eschewed stems altogether.] The problem was filling the tank because of the small volume. I racked the whites in early September. I’m filling the barrels late so that I can manage the percentage of new barrels.” Whereas other winemakers reduced the percentage of new oak, Mallard held firm and is convinced that there was no need to decrease the level of new wood, using two-thirds for his Grand Crus. This is a pretty strong set of wines that deserves more recognition; the whole bunch and new oak were deftly handled in such a challenging growing season. Whereas elsewhere, the 2021s are a bit pushed and unbalanced, Mallard manages to make them a natural fit for the wines here.