La Garenne

In the glass this is pale and clear with a light green tint. It has a lovely nervous tension, with fresh bright fruit and a great sense of precision. There are lemons, some plums and also white flowers – lots of detail here – before the long, fine, distinguished finish.

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”.

The Château de Puligny team have made an intense, tightly wound Premier Cru from La Garenne, an upper hillside vineyard which always maintains its minerality. This wine has a beautifully fine persistent finish.

Garenne is another vineyard that may be benefitting from changes in the weather pattern. The vineyard is high and exposed, its 50-year-old vines stunted, but the wine is shifting towards a more classic Puligny style. It is tremendous in 2017, linear and assertive but also teasingly alluring. Drink 2023-2030.

Winemaker Brian Sieve draws comparisons between the white wines of 2017 and 2014, explaining that the texture, weight and freshness are very similar in both years, although 2017 has perhaps a little more fruit ripeness, along with excellent tension and persistence. He believes that this same freshness and brightness in the reds will provide ageing capacity, pointing out that they worked hard to restrict the yield of Pinot Noir to achieve riper grapes. Overall slightly less whole-bunch fermentation was used as Brian felt the stems and fruit were not as ripe as in richer vintages.