Les Folatieres

A clear, pale colour, this has the lightest of green tints. A very elegant approach, this has beguiling floral notes, pure clean fruit too and some white peach, without being overly opulent. It has a lovely texture and great persistence. The fruit keeps on coming: an exquisitely balanced 2015 Puligny. Drink 2019-2024.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

The harvest began on 28th August, with acceptable but still slightly low volumes, very similar to the immediately previous vintages. Already certified as organic, the château’s wines will also be certified (Biodivin) as biodynamic from 2017. This has become a seriously good address for white Burgundy in recent vintages. The 2015s have an excellent weight of fruit married to good acidity.

Fine and pale, with a light green tint, this has just a hint of gunflint in it and a sense of greater weight. There’s an impeccable balance between the clay and the limestone, with beautiful integration of minerals and acidity, justifying its status as a senior Premier Cru. Very fine.

The progress we noted with the 2013 vintage here has been further developed with an excellent range of 2014 wines. Extra details apparent this year are the enhanced use of lees after racking and the minimal use of sulphur without risking oxidation. The Château de Puligny rises a further few notches up the ladder. Étienne de Montille notes that, in 2014, “there was super clean fruit and we could pick at leisure”.

A really intense nose of yellow fruit and spring flowers makes this wine immediately appealing. Quite full on the palate, it has lovely elegance and several layers of fruit which fill the mouth, before a long and fine finish.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director During the last year, Etienne de Montille, who has run Château de Puligny-Montrachet for the last decade, bought out the previous owners. 2012 will therefore be the first vintage of the new regime and also the first which will be fully certified organic after completion of the necessary three years. In 2011 the Château has produced a good crop of white wines, with old-fashioned low alcohol levels in both the reds and whites: wines originally found to be around 12% abv have been adjusted to 12.5% abv, anything above that was untouched.

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This is the estate’s jewel in its range of Premier Crus, and the step up in quality is evident. Here, there is a fine melding of the vintage character and the terroir’s aristocracy, with a real sense of dimension and richness, although with 2016’s attack. This is very good indeed, with only 20 percent new oak used to emphasise the orange blossom and white peach complexity. Drink 2020-2030.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer

The Château de Puligny-Montrachet was a slumbering force until finally being awoken by the arrival of Étienne de Montille in time to oversee the 2001 vintage. Under Étienne, yields have been drastically reduced and the wines are handled much more sympathetically in the cellar so that the quality of the fruit dominates the oak. In 2012 Étienne and investors purchased the property and have radically reformed the estate, dropping unsuitable vineyards, converting to organic (and indeed biodynamic) farming, and further improving the winemaking. It was a successful vintage here in terms of quality, under the eye of cellar master Brian Sieve. He recounts how the lower slopes of Puligny-Montrachet and the Bourgogne Blanc vineyards on the plain escaped nearly all the frost, but the lower Meursault vineyards were almost entirely affected. For Château de Puligny-Montrachet, this is a good vintage – maybe lacking the flesh of a truly great year, but equally delicious in its accessibility. Not all the vineyards suffered, but there were, nevertheless, some serious reductions in certain sites.