Bourgogne Aligoté "Les Blanches" AOC 2023

A dry white wine of cool clarity, slender in build and carried by inner tension. It is not fullness that sustains it, but drive and precision.

Domaine Jérôme Galeyrand is based in Saint-Philibert, east of Gevrey-Chambertin, with the cellar sitting right in the heart of the winemaking village. Galeyrand farms 5.25 hectares in the Côte de Nuits, from Marsannay through Fixin to Gevrey-Chambertin; his Aligoté comes from several parcels, one of them Les Blanches. 70 percent of the vineyards are farmed organically, 30 percent along sustainable principles, pesticides are excluded and the soil is worked mechanically.

Pure Aligoté. "Nous travaillons le jus de raisin frais sans procédé technologique et œnologique," says Galeyrand: no industrial yeasts, no fining agents, no enzymes, minimal sulphur. Ageing lasts twelve months in French oak barrels, with the proportion of new wood kept deliberately low so as not to mask the fruit.

Lemon, green apple and white blossom, underpinned by a herbal spiciness and a stony note reminiscent of wet flint. Dry, with lively acidity and crisp fruit, the finish stays straight and clean.

Oysters and fresh seafood, goat's cheese, pale fish with herb butter, alongside asparagus or a salad with goat's cheese and walnuts.

Galeyrand arrived in Burgundy with no winemaking family behind him, having spent eight years in the cheese trade. In 2002 he bought his first parcel: 0.05 hectares. Today, depending on the vintage, around 2000 cases are produced, roughly 24,000 bottles. In 2020 he received a star in the Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France.