To know anything about Bibendum is to know that we love championing the wines of great growers. We get even more excited when these growers are helping reveal lost or underappreciated terroirs. Think the great growers of Champagne, Olivier Lamy in Saint-Aubin, the Goisot family in Côtes d’Auxerre, Vincent Dureuil in Rully and so on. Such growers have made the wine world infinitely richer by teaching us the power of great practice in the vines, no matter the place. Camille Thiriet and Matt Chittick are on this same journey.In all our years visiting Burgundy, we don’t think we have encountered a more exciting start-up estate than Domaine Camille Thiriet. Starting any venture from scratch, let alone a Burgundy domaine, is tough. Yet this is precisely what Camille Thiriet has done, kicking off as a négociant in 2016 and now having established a domaine of six hectares in just six vintages. And that’s not all this young grower has achieved. With her partner, talented Canadian-born winemaker Matt Chittick, Thiriet is now putting the terroirs of two of Burgundy’s least-known villages*, Corgoloin (estate) and Comblanchien (négociant), firmly back on the fine wine map. Matt and Camille’s passion and talent are immediately obvious to anyone who knows them and their wines. They have attracted support from locals like Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac (today a close friend), Aubert de Villaine, Nicolas Potel and Bernard Noblet, retired cellar master of Domaine de la Romanée Conti. All have helped mentor this new estate, not to mention pitching in with some practical assistance. There can hardly be a more experienced tutor than Noblet, as Dan Keeling alluded to when he wrote in Issue 27 of Noble Rot: “Witnessing Noblet on the sorting table in Comblanchien at harvest time was a bit like seeing Alain Ducasse on the pass of a new Paris bistro.” As mentioned, this producer was mostly a négociant right up until 2021 (with only a tiny 0.25 hectares of vines) until the opportunity arose in early 2022 to acquire 4.5 hectares of vines and the cellars of the Gilles Jourdan domaine in Corgoloin (and some other bits and pieces that took the estate to just over 6 hectares). With a very high proportion of old vines, almost all of the estate vineyards are in Corgoloin, sitting on the same east- and southeast-facing slopes and the same rocky, limestone and clay soils of the more famous villages to the north. The holdings include the monopole of La Robignotte, historically regarded as the finest vineyard of southern Côte de Nuits-Villages. Camille and Matt’s work in the vines and cellar reflects the blueprint of Burgundy’s current ‘golden generation’: the farming follows organic principles, and the attention to detail can be summed up by the heading “best practice”. There are even two horses—Obélix and Véga—used for some of the cultivation work.Without exaggeration, Thiriet’s 2022s were as exciting as any line-up we encountered from this vintage in Burgundy. The quality was obvious, and the wines have a style we love. They are digestible, juicy, delicious wines with plenty of spicy bunch influence, as you might expect given Camille and Matt’s relationship with Seysses and Noblet. Regardless of the style, the quality of the wines, especially these 2022s, is remarkable. Jasper Morris’s quote above is no exaggeration. These are articulate Burgundies of great perfume, finesse and texture—wines to remind us why we drink Burgundy!A final point on the outstanding third-party reviews. All wines in this offer fall under either generic or village appellations. In this context, the reviews and scores are extraordinary (and deserved). You may be surprised when you compare them pound for pound with the famous names of Chambolle, Vosne, Gevrey and the like: few have performed better. And as always, if the wines came from more famous names, you can almost guarantee that the scores would be even higher.*The main reason that Corgoloin and Comblanchien, the two villages that form the beginning of the Côte de Nuits, are so rarely heard about is that they fall under the confusing Côte de Nuits-Villages appellation. This appellation brings together vineyards in five villages: parts of Brochon, any vines in Fixin (if the vigneron declassifies), parts of Premeaux (mostly below the road) and all of the best vineyards of Corgoloin and Comblanchien (above the road). This is why we do not see the village names of Corgoloin and Comblanchien on Burgundy labels—there is no separate appellation for these villages. There are historical reasons as to why this is the case (feel free to do your own research). Regardless, now with Domaine Camille Thiriet leading the charge, we will hopefully be hearing much more about these two fascinating communes.