Our first tranche of 2024 white Burgundies are starting to arrive. The headline news is that 2024 heralds a return to a more classic model of white Burgundy: delicious wines of modest alcohol, bright acidity and cool fruit flavours.

This exciting Jura collaboration between Beaune star David Croix and his friend (and local) Damien Courbet is certainly coming to the boil. In today’s email, we offer the pair’s first set of red wines; a Trousseau and Poulsard from vines sited close to Château-Chalon. We already know how good this project’s whites can be; it will come as little surprise that the reds follow suit. 

As one of our insightful clients put it at a recent event in Melbourne with Tesseron’s Matthieu Chapoutier, “You can buy more famous names in Cognac, but you can’t buy better.” How true. In a story that mimics that of the top grower-producers in Champagne (vs. the Grandes Marques houses), the remarkable quality and distinctive, vinous style of Tesseron’s predominantly XO Cognacs have allowed this artisanal producer to carve out a niche among the giants of Cognac. 

Jean-Marie Guffens is one of France’s most revered wine makers. Though best known for his brilliant wines from the Mâcon, the wines from his southern Estate should not be overlooked! Nor should remarkable his Barsacs, where Château Closiot has quickly become a regional benchmark (at very fair prices). But that’s a discussion for another day. Château des Tourettes is Guffens’ Domaine in the Luberon—a stretch of magnificent, hilly vineyards between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence.

“The key to these wines’ success is that they don’t hammer you over the head with the philosophy behind them, expressing their variety of lieux-dits with style and, prosaically, sheer deliciousness. Readers should seek out the superb single-site offerings from Saint-Véran or their Pouilly-Vinzelles, the last vintage before Premier Cru will be attached to its name.” Neal Martin, Vinous

Chermette’s 2024 Griottes is a punchy crowd-pleaser with loads of crunchy blueberry fruit and exuberant cherrystone tang. This is just the kind of Beaujolais the late Marcelle Lapierre referred to when he said, “Ça se boit sous la douche.” (It’s a wine you can drink under the shower.)