About this WINE
Jean-Yves Devevey
You wouldn’t know it from his laid-back manner, but Jean-Yves Devevey is a busy man. Built from scratch, his domaine today amounts to eight hectares of vines.
His holdings can be described as “diminutive but demanding”, especially when one considers his exacting standards, including organic farming.
A popular figure among his fellow Burgundian winemakers, Jean-Yves is also something of a maverick, who has been flying the flag for low-sulphur wines since 2010. Moreover, he’s the only Burgundian we work with to have planted Savagnin – sadly, the wine is not for sale.
Rully
The commune and wine appellation of Rully in the north of the Côte Chalonnaise region produces both red and white wines but is better known for the latter. Typically Rully Blanc (100% Chardonnay , fermented and matured in oak barrels) is accessible relatively early in life but well made barrel fermented examples can age for up to five years. The commune is also famous as an excellent source of the sparkling wine Crémant de Bourgogne.
The red wines are in classic Burgundian style (100% Pinot Noir), supple and accessible from a young age, and they tend to exhibit simple but enjoyable fruity notes with a delightful perfume. The whites tend to be more complex: vivacious and fresh, one can detect notes of apples, lemons and nuttiness. Both reds and whites are rather light-bodied, and are therefore more enjoyable within two to three years of bottling.
Chardonnay
Chardonnay is often seen as the king of white wine grapes and one of the most widely planted in the world It is suited to a wide variety of soils, though it excels in soils with a high limestone content as found in Champagne, Chablis, and the Côte D`Or.
Burgundy is Chardonnay's spiritual home and the best White Burgundies are dry, rich, honeyed wines with marvellous poise, elegance and balance. They are unquestionably the finest dry white wines in the world. Chardonnay plays a crucial role in the Champagne blend, providing structure and finesse, and is the sole grape in Blanc de Blancs.
It is quantitatively important in California and Australia, is widely planted in Chile and South Africa, and is the second most widely planted grape in New Zealand. In warm climates Chardonnay has a tendency to develop very high sugar levels during the final stages of ripening and this can occur at the expense of acidity. Late picking is a common problem and can result in blowsy and flabby wines that lack structure and definition.
Recently in the New World, we have seen a move towards more elegant, better- balanced and less oak-driven Chardonnays, and this is to be welcomed.
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Description
It was a very good vintage for Jean-Yves, although he had to move to harvest very quickly to catch the freshness he wanted. This is a lovely, relaxed wine, long and energetic, thanks to a generous amount of limestone in the vineyard. There are some old vines here, some up to 60 years old, but this is not the key for Jean-Yves: “Better to have young vines on good soil than old vines on poor,” he tells us. Happily, here we have old vines on good soil, producing a composed, waxy Chardonnay that he compares to 2014 and 2010. Drink 2019-2023.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer
Jean-Yves started with a small holding of generic Bourgogne from modest locations, and nothing but a shed behind the house to work in. Through hard work and considerable skill, he built up a successful business, part vigneron, part négociant, with a properly equipped cuverie and cellar to hand. He stopped his négociant activities in 2014, with the cellar paid for and, with so many short harvests, he was struggling to find affordable organic grapes of the quality he wanted. He now concentrates solely on his domaine, which encompasses eight hectares, all certified organic, covering Hautes Côtes de Beaune in both red and white, Beaune, Volnay and Rully. He also has a new, small side product underway with Savagnin, from which he hopes to make some Jura-style wines. Across the whole domaine in 2016, Jean-Yves achieved only 9hl/ha, but there is a sense of relief now that the more abundant 2017 is safely gathered. At one stage, things could have been a bit tight, sufficiently so that there is no Beaune Pertuisots or Volnay this year. Such vicissitudes might put the quality of Jean-Yves’s 2016s into the shade, but this is a fine result for what has survived. Both the red and white Rully represent great value for Burgundy with real personality. What does shine through is that, with his négociant business behind him, Jean-Yves is now where he wants to be, with his own, nicely balanced domaine, free to make the best wines he can.
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