Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Baudines AOC 2024

Wine description for Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Baudines AOC 2024 by Thomas Morey

Colour & appearance

Pale gold, clear and luminous in the glass – a wine that visually announces its cool, altitude-driven origins from the very first glance.

Nose

Spare, bright, citric: star fruit, greengages and pineapple meet preserved lemon, accompanied by foliage and blossoms. A fine imprint of wood and vanilla remains discreetly in the background. You can almost smell the upper reaches of the hillside.

Palate

Slender and mineral, citric and chalky, with ripe yet precise acidity. Piquant, still slightly reductive, the texture appears somewhat closed at present – here slumbers a wine that will only reveal its full radiance with time. It possesses every prerequisite to do so.

Finish

Chalky-saline and taut, with a long, citric-mineral aftertaste that calls for air and a few years of patience.

Terroir & origin

Les Baudines lies at the southern end of Chassagne-Montrachet, on the upper part of the hillside, immediately adjacent to Les Embazées and the commune boundary of Santenay. The soil is white limestone of remarkable depth – the foundation for the cool, chalky clarity of this climat.

Grape variety & vinification

Pure Chardonnay. Fermentation takes place with indigenous yeasts in neutral casks and tanks, while malolactic fermentation proceeds naturally. The wine remains on its lees – without any bâtonnage. The proportion of new wood is around 20 per cent, and sulphur is only added in minimal doses during the final six months in cask (never more than 35 mg/l in total).

Food recommendations

A wine for refined, uncluttered cuisine: pike-perch in shellfish broth, poached sole with lemon butter, grilled calamari or poultry breast with morel jus. Also a harmonious match with young Comté.

Special features

Thomas Morey, a tenth-generation winemaker, tends the vines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Montrachet – anyone this close to such terroir knows what high-altitude sites are capable of. His style is deliberately slender and finely strung rather than opulent: this Baudines 2024 is still a promise, not a finished wine – if you open it now, give it plenty of air. Those who wait will be rewarded with one of the most precise white wines of the vineyard site. Certified organic since 2017.