2019 Philippe Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin Cote de Nuits Burgundy 750 ml

“These wines are scarce,” began Robert Parker in his Buyer’s Guide, 7th Edition. “But to taste them is a revelation. No one seriously interested in Burgundy should neglect the experience.”

He was talking about the wines of Philippe Pacalet, one of our all-time favorite Burgundy producers and a legend in Burgundy—even something of a cult figure. So when a rare opportunity arose to pick up a small allocation of the 2019 Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin, we could barely contain our excitement.

Produced in tiny quantities, lavished with personal care from Pacalet himself—who bottles them by hand—these wines fly off the lists at fine-dining temples like Eleven Madison Park, the French Laundry, and Quince.

Pacalet’s 2019 cuvée, largely drawn off the Premier Cru Les Corbeaux climat, won 94 points from Decanter. Only three other Gevrey-Chambertin village wines from the vintage received the same score in the magazine—including the $600 Rousseau. To buy anything rated higher, you’ll have to drop serious bucks on a Premier Cru.

Pacalet descends from a line of winemakers dating back to the 1700s, and he trained with his uncle, the iconic Marcel Lapierre. Pacalet has also made wine for the late Henry-Frédéric Roch—co-director of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti—at Roch’s Domaine Prieuré Roch.

Pacalet doesn’t own vineyards, preferring to work with top growers who subscribe to his own beliefs about organic, sustainable farming. He favors old vines like the 50-year-old Pinot bushes harvested for this bottling, and seeks out the extremely rare, low-yielding, ancient Pinot Fin clone.  

2019, in his words, was a vintage that showed more of everything, supercharged by abundant sun while producing slighter lower volumes. This is one of Gevrey-Chambertin’s signature releases of the year.