Late last year, we sat down for an epic 2022 tasting with this exceptionally talented winemaker, looking at over 40 wines from the 52 he made. In summary, 2022 is a standout vintage at this address. The quality is outstanding in red and white and across every level, from Bourgogne to Grand Cru. Every wine we tried was exceptional for its appellation. Although we were not surprised—Benjamin Leroux has been producing great Burgundy under his own label for nearly 20 years—this was an impressive tasting, even by his lofty standards. And we had context, having visited close to 15 top Burgundy estates before rocking up to Leroux’s doorstep. Leroux’s captivating and beautifully aromatic 2022 red Burgundies purr with succulent textures, elegant tannins and appetising freshness. The whites offer freshness, density and the site transparency that we love from top Burgundy. After the challenging, low-yielding 2021 season, 2022 was a blessing for Burgundy’s vignerons. Not only was it a grower’s dream, but the best growers also delighted in a confluence of quality and quantity that is more than rare in Burgundy these days. It’s probably been a decade or more since Leroux harvested such generous yields (notwithstanding that generous yields in Burgundy remain a fraction of most other winegrowing regions). Likewise, it has been some time since we have had enough stock to offer these beautiful wines to our full customer base.Leroux now vinifies and ages 50% of his white wine in large cask (foudre) and 20% of his reds (or 50% of reds if you include 500 and 600L in that calculation). He is using more and more 450-litre barrels for the reds, and any new 228-litre pièces are tempered with a white fermentation before being filled with red. He also works with minimal added sulphur and meticulous on-site testing as the wine ages. Extraction with the reds is on the light side—“We can’t plunge three times a day anymore”— and bunch inclusion was again adapted to each terroir; what works for Les Rugiens doesn’t necessarily work for Les Santenots. Even before Benjamin Leroux left Domaine Comte Armand to fly solo, the influential Burgundy critic Allen Meadows had already referred to the young winemaker as a natural successor to Henri Jayer. Jayer, who passed away in 2006, was arguably Burgundy’s first global superstar vigneron. At the height of this fame in the late 1980s, not even the wines of the legendary Domaine de la Romanée Conti were as prized as those of Jayer. Part of Jayer’s genius was the ability to craft outstanding Burgundy regardless of the season. Another feature of his wines was that they would taste delicious from the day they were released. “Good young, good old,” Jayer would say. Benjamin Leroux shares these talents, yet his ability to source and produce such high quality from so many, mostly tiny, batches is perhaps his enduring genius. Across the entire range, from Bourgogne to Grand Cru, 2022 marks a flat-out gorgeous vintage for Leroux and his team. These wines remind us why we buy, drink and obsess about great Burgundy.