2021 Rully du Clos de Bellecroix Cuvée Marey

Instead of a series of Vinous Tables, over the holiday season, I wrote a single paragraph on places that I frequent during my annual three or four months in the region. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list, and for reasons of length, I reluctantly exclude Beaujolais and Mâconnais, each bejeweled with their own outstanding restaurants that often offer better value. My selection is listed in order of personal preference. Hopefully, it provides a useful guide. Feel free to add your own.

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.