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90 Vinous
Medium yellow. The highest-pitched on the nose of these 2016s to this point, offering aromas of lemon zest, white stone fruits and crushed rock; this site is located just above Les Perrières on thin, calcaire-rich soil and the nose is very Perrières-like. Fine-grained, zesty wine with lovely inner-mouth lift to its white peach and slatey mineral flavors. Nicely integrated acidity gives this concentrated wine a sappy, tangy quality, with its touch of gingery sweetness leavened by a saline element. Finishes dusty, firm and persistent, with good minerality and subtle rising length. This is an outperformer for a village wine; in fact, tasted next to Vincent Boyer's Perrières, it shows more obvious early chalky minerality and is more open and showy today, even if its finish is not as coated with fruit as the Perrières. -Vinous
Boyer-Martenot is a 4th generation Burgundy domaine that bridges tradition and modernity with complete aplomb. The winery’s Meursault’s are among the appellation’s most ethereal and pure. Part of this is due to Boyer-Martenot’s exacting winemaking practices, which include wild-yeast ferments, almost entirely neutral barrels, very little added sulfur and fining. The other part is thanks to the domaine’s vines—which are the envy of many a Burgundy vigneron.
Vincent Boyer has been running the show at this family estate for the last 15 years, and has taken Domaine Boyer-Martenot from one of the Cote de Beaune’s best estates to one of the very finest in all of Burgundy. In 2016 he fashioned a truly spectacular ‘Les Chaumes.’ At once richly endowed with ripe and juicy stone fruit and sweet floral aromatics and with a seemingly opposed clarity and minerality, this gorgeously precise wine is a white Burgundy-lovers dream already and will only continue to blossom and evolve over the next decade.
· A fantastic vintage for white Burgundy throughout the Cote de Beaune, 2016 was rated 95 points by the Wine Enthusiast.
· The lieu dit of ‘Les Chaumes’ sits just above the 1er Cru vineyard of Perrieres and shares that fabled site’s clay-limestone soils.
· Boyer-Martenot’s plantings at ‘Les Chaumes’ are 35-year-old vines, which—like all of the domaine’s holdings—are farmed sustainably.
· Maintaining a hands-off approach at the winery, Boyer-Martenot insists on indigenous yeast ferment only, minimal new oak during maturation (just 10%) and zero fining or filtration.
Crisp and clean with flavors of grapefruit, lemon zest, and green apple. Finish is firm and persistent.
After World War II, André Boyer inherited the Domaine from his mother Lucie, who up until then had been running the winery entirely by herself. In 1945 André married Juliette Devèze who was born and raised in the adjoining village of Puligny Montrachet. Their son, Yves, continued his families tradition and married Marie Cécile Martenot, the daughter of a winemaker in Meursault. Their son, Vincent Boyer, is now the newest owner of the Domaine.
The Domaine has in total 10 hectares of vineyards spread across various locations of the Côte de Beaune including Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Auxey-Duresses and Pommard. From 1997 to 2007 the Domaine acquired more parcels of land giving them a wider selection of appellations including Meursault "Les Tillets", Meursault 1er Cru "Les Perrieres", and Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru "Le Cailleret".
The vines and soil give the wine its great quality which is why it is important to manage them with both respect and care. To ensure that the wine produced is of high quality, traditional methods are used involving little or no product (sprays, chemicals, etc.) soil cultivation, crop care, green harvest, and hand picking. Using these old fashioned methods and less machinery allows for the wines to develop naturally which means they are very similar to organic wine making, however they don't have the 'Bio' label.
This Chablis like style goes well with white fish seasoned with herbs or a turkey dinner.
