Sappy, mineral and driven by zesty fruit, the 2007 Bourgogne from Alain Chavy is calmer than the 05 and 06 delivering the promise of early pleasure - yet a year of bottle age would certainly allow this wine to show full potential.
It is becoming rarer and rarer to source great family owned Puligny-Montrachet. Whenever a new generation is reluctant to take up the reins from their fathers, the big companies pounce and buy up the vines for their mass-produced blends, destined for the international restaurant market. Fortunately the Chavys have been in Puligny for nearly 200 years and when Gerard Chavy retired in 2005 he left the family estate to his two sons Alain and Jean-Louis and the future was safe for at least another generation.
At 5.5 metres Alain has the deepest cellars in Puligny-Montrachet (!), a region that has the highest water table in the Cote de Beaune. Although his philosophy is to continue the great work of his father (who insisted on classic Puligny-Montrachet that highlighted elegance, complexity and sophistication) we feel that Alain is skillfully adding new dimensions to the domain’s wines. His cellar is an arched citadel of barrels that contain some of the best (and best priced) wines in the village.