Saint-Romain blanc "Sous le Château" AOC 2022

Intense straw yellow in the glass. An aromatically bright, fresh-seeming Chardonnay overlaid with a smoky wisp of flint and wood. Beneath that, lemon and mandarin with their zest, yellow plum and cape gooseberry.

The Sous le Château vineyard lies near the village of Saint-Romain in the Côte de Beaune, facing south-east, at 340 to 380 metres. The soil is a colluvium over limestone. The altitude brings cool nights and an extended ripening period, which gives the grapes acid structure and aromatic definition.

Chardonnay from 30-year-old vines, hand-harvested and pressed as whole clusters. Spontaneous fermentation in wood, with malolactic fermentation also proceeding spontaneously in the barrels. Aged for ten to twelve months in barriques and tonneaux of 228, 350 and 500 litres, of which at most 10% are replaced each year, alongside concrete eggs and WineGlobes. The wine is tasted and racked daily, whenever Frédéric Buisson considers it necessary. Fined with bentonite, only very lightly filtered, sulphured only at bottling with a maximum of 40 to 50 mg/l total sulphite.

Precision and clarity, a cool intensity, an almost steely character. Little of the warm, at times even hot, vintage is noticeable, though there is somewhat more yellow fruit. The taut acidity remains present through to the finish. 12.5% vol., dry.

Grilled chicken marinated in chilli powder and lime with grilled spring onions, Chingri Do Pyaaza, prawns with onion, tomato, chilli and turmeric, or a quesadilla with yellow tomato salsa.

The Buisson family farms 13 hectares biodynamically across the Saint-Romain, Santenay and Beaune appellations; this way of working was introduced by Henri Buisson in 1990. With the white wines, the younger generation is setting its own accents, noticeable in the precision and length.