Prestige Offers

Domaine Pavelot 2018-2021 Grand & Premier Cru Whites

Luc and Lise Pavelot clearly specialize in the wines produced from the vines in their home village of Pernand-Vergelesses. In this bundle, we present a collection made of their 2018 and 2020 whites from their prized holdings in the Premier Cru En Caradeux vineyard. And from the tiny-yielding 2021 vintage, the Domaine has included bottles of their very best white wines. The Premier Cru Sous Frétille vineyard, lovingly and perhaps just slightly over-enthusiastically referred to by the team at Pavelot as a "baby Corton-Charlemagne" (it is adjacent), produces whites which are bright (a snap of acidity), often with hints of apple and lemon. Pavelot's version is also noteworthy for its depth and minerality. The En Caradeux vineyard produces wines that are a bit lighter and even brighter, with a touch more sweetness and less earthiness. These differences are caused mostly by exposure: Sous Frétille (like Corton-Charlemagne) faces southwest giving it access to the hotter afternoon sun, allowing the vines to produce deeper, riper grapes. En Caradeux, just across the valley, faces the other vineyards with a southeasterly exposure, giving it gentler morning sun, and producing lighter wines. As a serving suggestion, pair the En Caradeux with more delicate dishes and let the Sous Frétille do the heavy lifting! But all of that is the lead up to the star of this show, the Grand Cru Corton-Charlemagne! Corton-Charlemagne is one of the most renowned of all white wines, producing tremendous depth, complexity and weight. This is a big wine that will stand up to robust foods, but can also complement seafood and more delicate fare. It is definitely a "special occasion" kind-of-experience.

These wines will appreciate a few years of cellar time, especially the 2021s. 2021 was a challenging vintage for White Burgundy as early April frosts eliminated nearly 90% of the usual harvest! The good news is that the surviving fruit produced strong, complex wines as the vines concentrated their energies on a comparatively small number of grapes. 2018 and 2020 were both fantastic vintages for whites. They offer superb tension rather than over-the-top ripeness, allowing the characteristic minerality to shine through.

Domaine Marchand-Grillot 2013, 2021 Gevrey-Chambertins

Sixth generation winemaker Jacques Marchand, now aided by his son Etienne and daughter Marion, brings his extensive experience to produce wines red wines of character. Etienne studied at the Lycée Viticole at Macon-Davayé, followed by a BTS in Wine Commerce at Thecoma in Paris, and gained hands-on experience with winemakers in Oregon. His influence has given the estate new enthusiasm, adding modern working techniques aimed at greater sustainability. And the blend of their collective knowledge is propelling the domaine to new heights! But what does this mean in practical terms for you?

Well, Gevrey-Chambertin, the northernmost Burgundian village producing Grand and Premier Cru red wines, is famously known for delivering very powerful, deep expressions of Old-World Pinot Noir. This domaine is located right in the town, but the family's eye is set towards more modern, more approachable wines made from those same, otherwise powerful, vineyards. This effort results in wines of depth but also of nice acidity, which effectively cuts through the heaviness and affords pleasant early-drinking experiences. Naturally, if the wines are pemitted some time to age, a subtler, more complex flavor emerges.

In this bundle, Domaine Marchand-Grillot brings you wines from their very approachable 2021 vintage. You will be able to experience this lighter touch in powerful vineyards. Plus, in order for you to taste the difference a decade of aging can make on these wines, the domaine has included a bottle of their cellar-aged 2013 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Petite-Chapelle. If you decide these wines are better after a few years of cellaring, this 2013 will be instructive as to how to handle some of the younger wines in the bundle. Indeed, that is a reason they've included two bottles each of the 2021 Petite-Chapelle and 2021 Gevrey-Chambertin En Joise, a single-vineyard village wine of character. Try one young; save one for the future.

Domaine Dubois 2021 Red Collection - Village, Premier & Grand Cru

The sister and brother team of Béatrice and Raphaël are the ninth generation of the Dubois family to operate this small domaine located just south of Nuits-Saint-Georges. While their long history and experience base guarantees the team is well prepared to produce wonderful wines, they nevertheless look to enhance the product using modern methods and techniques. While staying true to their terroir, they strive to get their vines to deliver deep, dense fruit, but with elegance and length. In 2021, mother nature was somewhat unkind, throwing a deep frost at the vineyards in early April, destroying much of the budding young crop. But what survived on the vines was graced with plenty of attention by the plants, and elegant wines were consequently produced, albeit in small volumes. In this bundle, the team has offered a range of red wines from this special vintage covering the early drinking, delightful and fragrant village wines from Volnay and Nuits-Saint-Georges, up to more powerful Premier Crus from Nuits-Saint-Georges (Clos des Argillières and Les Porêts Saint Georges), and finally the intensely flavored Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru.

Clos de Vougeot is noted for wines of deep color and richness, often described as combining elegance and delicacy with meaty fullness. Dubois' version fits this classic profile, but includes a slightly fresher, fruitier set of attributes in the nose and on the palate. This exciting bundle includes three bottles of Premier Cru Nuits-Saint-Georges, which are certainly meaty wines themselves, but not rustic or tannic. These wines also have a fruit-driven aroma and taste, featuring notes of strawberry, blueberry and plums, along with a touch of spiciness. A scaled down version of the aforementioned Nuits-Saint-Georges, the village wine included comes from vineyards farther down the slope and are thus lighter and softer. Finally, the Volnay Les Paux Bois is not a light wine by any means, but it can be a complement to a fine meal in the nearer future. The lovely element here is that the Dubois house style of fruit-forward wines - built with plenty of depth - can be experienced across the range of these better vineyards.

Unfortunately, there are no professional critic reviews available for any of these young wines. For your reference, we have included the most recent reviews of two of these wines from the 2019 vintage.

Domaine Mazilly 2021 Premier Cru & Village Reds

This is a wonderfully broad selection of Mazilly's newest reds - mostly Premier Crus - from their vineyards spread across the Côte d'Or. All farmed from their low-yielding 2021 vintage, the team have included wines that will be approachable quite soon, and others that will improve with some age. Indeed, Aymeric Mazilly, who is taking ever more control of winemaking at his family domaine (he is indeed the fils in Domaine Mazilly & Fils), is among a younger group of primarily Côte de Beaune winemakers using new techniques to acquire greater freshness in wines made from terroirs known for producing deep, cellar-necessary reds. Aymeric looks to build balanced wines from these potentially overtly heavy terroirs. So let's journey with this bundle through these noteworthy vineyards...

...Beginning in the south, we've included two bottles of Pommard 1er Cru Les Poutures. Poutures is one of the lower elevation Premier Crus of Pommard, and thus it tends to produce wines that are a bit lighter and fresher than the heaviest Pommards, which befits Aymeric's style preferences. Still deep and complex, it can nevertheless be enjoyed sooner than the often brooding wines of this region. On the northern side of town, mid-slope, we find Pommard's Les Noizons vineyard. This village wine brings some of the complexity of the Premier Crus which lay adjacent to it, but with a softer, fruit-forward nature. The next village to the north, Beaune, is home to a large collection of Premier Crus including one resting along the Pommard border, Les Montrevenots. Sharing some Pommard-like characteristics of intensity and depth, the Montrevenots may require a bit more patience than most wines in this collection but the drinker will be rewarded with depth and complexity of dark and red fruits. The final wine from the Côte de Beaune, the Savigny les Beaune 1er Cru Les Narbantons comes from a vineyard just south of the famous Hill of Corton, home to Grand Cru Corton. Like its neighbor, this vineyard produces wines which are concentrated, but with fine tannins and a bit of earthiness in the flavor profile. Lastly, we head well north, to Gevrey-Chambertin, at the top of the Côte d'Or. Gevrey, like Pommard, is well known for producing intense Pinot Noir. Mazilly's vineyard doubles down on this concept inasmuch as it is populated with very old vines (vieilles vignes) which are highly prized because they produce smaller quantities of more concentrated fruit.