Jean-Marie Guffens makes some of the most singular and utterly captivating white Burgundies around.
For over two decades, Guffens' wines have been in my drinking orbit. In my opinion, this notoriously provocative and rebellious winemaker is currently making the best wines to date. It's amazing to witness this from someone whose first vintage was 1980.
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For many, the wines of the Mâconnais in southern Burgundy are second-tier. However, in Guffens' hands, the region can compete on the world stage. The wines of Mâconnais are often associated with a certain heaviness. The wines of Guffens-Heynen shock you with their electricity and fineness.
As William Kelley, the astute writer for The Wine Advocate, has said: "Guffens produces some of the most exciting wines in all of Burgundy; whites which unite tension, texture and amplitude in rare harmony." That sums up the wines well.
Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne is sourced from a low-yielding high altitude site. The signature is always an intensity married to a racy focus. The blazing punch of the 2018 is really impressive.
This is simply a singular bottle of white Burgundy. I strongly recommend that you check out at least a bottle.
To order, email offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Ian McFadden
Director, Fine & Rare
Crush Wine & Spirits
William Kelley, The Wine Advocate: "The 2018 Mâcon-Pierreclos Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne is tightly wound and introverted, but its incredible tension and palate presence is impossible to miss. Unfurling in the glass with notes of crisp yellow orchard fruit, orange oil, nutmeg, fresh pastry and pears, it's full-bodied, deep and immensely incisive, with huge concentration and structuring dry extract, girdled by racy acids. Long and penetrating, this is one of the wines of the vintage in the Mâconnais. As readers will remember from the inaugural 2016 rendition, this cuvée hails from a parcel of vines ("Juliette") that were stunted by the 2003 heat wave and which have always produced tiny yields. The more generous yields of 2018 gave Guffens sufficient volume to fulfill a long-standing ambition to vinify them separately, and to this, Guffens added the fruit from his 1.05 hectares of old vines in Mâcon-Pierreclos, which yielded a mere 37 hectoliters. The resulting wine was fermented and matured in barrels, 50% of which were new."