2017 Louis Latour Montagny Les Buys 750 ml

The finest Chardonnay in the world has always been grown on the east-facing calcareous hillsides of Burgundy. From Meursault to Pouilly-Fuissé, excellent white Burgundy marries tightly wound apple-pear concentration with a riveting acid backbone. But bargain-hunting in Burgundy these days is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Today, we have at least one needle in hand...

If the villages of Meursault, Puligny- and Chassagne-Montrachet, and Aloxe-Corton (for its Corton-Charlemagne) turn out the richest and most age-worthy Chardonnays on the planet, the finest values are found among the hillsides of the Côte Chalonnaise. Drawn entirely from the similarly east-facing, limestone slopes of Montagny in the heart of the Côte Chalonnaise, the 2017 Louis Latour Montagny Les Buys is glistening pale-gold to the rim, infused with luscious aromas of Gravenstein apple and Bartlett pear, followed by notes of yellow wildflowers and fresh lemon. 

One of our Burgundy basics and rule of thumb has always been: If you can lock into top-shelf Montagny, Rully, or Mercurey for less than $20 per bottle, buy every case you can stuff in the cellar. 

It’s why we took Louis-Fabrice Latour up on an offer to visit Burgundy this past fall. Sometimes, you have to go a long way out of your way, to come back a short distance correctly—and with a deal like the one you’re reading today. Latour is, after all, one of the great producers of Montagny—they have a Premier Cru monopole called La Grande Roche, which is a stone’s throw from the Les Buys lieu-dit (a specially named vineyard). But no matter the site—Grand Cru, Premier Cru, village-level—Latour is unique in that they treat all their parcels the same in the cellar: they handle grapes from the village level with the same care as those from their most-prized Grands Crus.

Fall in Montagny reveals a mosaic of foliage that rivals New England, and as you drive through the Côte Chalonnaise, the slopes are more gentle than in the Cote de Nuits and Beaune. The soils mimic the limestone makeup of Meursault. The wines share the mouthwatering, stony minerality of the hyphenated Montrachets to the north, but bear little resemblance in the price—at less than $20 per bottle, as we said, buy every case you can stuff in the cellar!