Etienne Sauzet Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes 2022 (BH95)

Country:               France
Region:                 Burgundy Rating:                  BH95
Grape Variety:   100% Chardonnay
Type of Wine:     White Wine
Bottle Size:          750ml

Allen Meadows - Burghound 95
Note: from a 1 ha parcel of 50+ year old vines that see 40% new wood. Cool, airy and strikingly elegant aromas display a broad array of floral elements that are laced with hints of citrus, wet stone, spice and an admirably discreet touch of oak. The super-sleek and again almost painfully intense middle weight flavors are a combination of power and refinement, all wrapped in a wonderfully long and impeccably well-balanced finale. This is textbook Combettes and seriously good not to mention entirely ageworthy.*Burghound Sweet Spot Outstanding!*

By Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 94
The 2022 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes is terrific, offering up aromas of pear, citrus zest, white flowers, toasted nuts and fresh mint, followed by a medium to full-bodied, satiny and layered palate that's dense and structured, with racy acids and chalky grip. I suspect it may surpass even the excellent 2020 version. Benoît Riffault is pleased with his 2022s, and with reason, as it numbers among his finest vintages to date. His harvest dates were more or less the same as in 2020, which is to say, relatively speaking, a little earlier, and that translates to impeccable balance across the board. But what are the rudiments of winemaking at this address today? Hand-harvested fruit is pressed without crushing, the press cycle lasting around three and a half hours and performing "quite a few," which is to say more than 20, rotations. The must is sulfited at the end of the press and settled for 24 hours, but Riffault retains most of the lees, fermenting in wood with ambient yeasts. Larger formats, including foudres, now complement 228-liter Burgundian barrels. The wines are racked to tank in July-August before the new vintage, whereas the premiers and grands crus spend as much as six months on their lees before bottling. All of Sauzet's wines are bottled with high-quality unbleached and unwaxed natural cork.