2022 Louis Latour Vire-Clesse Les Champs Burgundy 750 ml

Maison Louis Latour is one of Burgundy's oldest and most storied houses, farming a peerless collection of Grand Cru vineyards on the hill of Corton and beyond. Yet some of the most telling wines in the portfolio aren't the trophies. They're the everyday bottles the family actually drinks.

This Viré-Clessé Les Champs is one of them. It comes from the Mâconnais, the sun-warmed southern stretch of Burgundy where Chardonnay grows with generosity and ease. The Les Champs vineyard sits on Jurassic limestone hillsides between the villages of Viré and Clessé, slopes the monks of Cluny first cultivated more than 900 years ago.

The late Louis-Fabrice Latour, who led the house for over two decades, considered it his weeknight white. A man with access to Montrachet and Corton-Charlemagne on any given night, he reached instead for this limestone-driven Viré-Clessé when he wanted something honest and refreshing on the table. As he once put it, the ritual was to toast the monks of Cluny and drink great vintages of Viré-Clessé.

Because the Mâconnais draws less attention than headline appellations like Pouilly-Fuissé, wines like this one remain something of an insider's find, delivering real Burgundian pedigree without the fanfare. The old vines dig deep into limestone, lending the wine its signature tension between ripe orchard fruit and a cool mineral spine.

The 2022 growing season was a turning point for Burgundy. After several lean, frost-hit vintages, a warm and steady summer restored both quantity and quality across the region, yielding whites of exceptional balance: ripe and open, yet lifted by fresh acidity. In Les Champs, that shows as bright apple and pear, quince, and a saline, stony minerality that keeps everything precise.

It is Chardonnay that rewards close attention and casual company in equal measure, as at home beside a simple roast chicken or a plate of oysters as it is on its own. That versatility, and its unpretentious charm, are what have made it a favorite among our members.