2020 Domaine Pillot Laurent & Romain Pinot Noir Bourgogne France 750 ml

A complex, carefully crafted wine from impeccable vineyards in and around the village of Mercurey, Domaine Pillot Laurent & Romain’s Pinot Noir is a need-to-know-someone find that rarely escapes Burgundy’s wine-savvy locals. It only ended up in our glasses because our wine-writer friend Lucas brought a bottle back from the small family-run estate and poured it at a dinner at San Francisco’s Saison. 

That’s where we watched as Burgundy buffs—most of whom hadn’t even blinked at the restaurant’s pages of triple-digit priced wines—heaped on the praise. Even as bottles from icons like Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey and Hubert Lamy made the rounds, the Pillot impressed. After each course, the conversation (and everybody’s glasses) inevitably drifted back to the Pillot.

Pinot Noir from the Côte d’Or is excellent, and certainly worth the region’s soaring prices. But ear-to-the-ground buyers know the Côte Chalonnaise, just to the south, is the spot for exceptional Pinot at great value. Eric Asimov of The New York Times said Côte Chalonnaise reds convey “what makes Burgundy the promised land for Pinot Noir wines,” and Wine Enthusiast said Mercurey produces “some of Burgundy’s most attractive, cushioned and vibrant Pinot Noirs.”  

Laurent and Romain represent the fifth and sixth generations to make wine at Domaine Pillot. They hand-harvest all the grapes grown on the clay-limestone soils, ferment them in concrete vats, then age the wine for 10 months in stainless-steel vats to preserve its pure-fruit flavors—just one of the traits that so impressed the Pinot-fanatics at Saison that night. 

Unless you find yourself at a bistro in the Côte Chalonnaise sometime soon, we’re not sure when you’ll see this wine again. Don’t miss it here.