2021 Bourgogne Aligoté

Clémence Dubrelle, (still) the bubbliest person in Burgundy, is on hand to guide me through her latest wines at the Rully-based winery. “We started the harvest on 21 September and finished on 26 September, picking over six days,” she explains. “We have new 66-hectoliter vats, one for the Clos Saint-Jacques and one for the Cuvée Marey that now allows us to blend and fine those cuvées as one lot. We still use cubic cement vats from the sixties where we conduct the pigeage with our legs [she shows me a bit of dancing that usually accompanies what is actually a very arduous practice that tends to lose the novelty factor after five minutes] and transfer the wine into stainless steel tanks and finally into barrel.” As expected, the Domaine’s vines were acutely impacted by the frost in April, losing between 34% and 84% of volumes, the latter sadly in their Clos Saint-Jacques Premier Cru, whose fruit was gathered in a mere two hours! Yet they strive on undeterred, and their wines have a charm of their own.