Domaine Paul Pillot Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru La Romanée 2019

If Les Grandes Ruchottes and La Grande Montagne are wines borne of the air (aérien as the French might say), then La Romanée is a wine of the bedrock. This famous site is so named, according to local lore, because it was the Romans who first planted vines here (a strange legend if you think about it). La Romanée is located high on the slope and is a sunny site that sees little wind and is widely considered to be the finest 1er Cru vineyard in Chassagne. The soils here are very, very rocky—especially where the Pillot vines are located, at the very top of the terroir. The Pillot’s 0.49-hectares of vines here were planted by Thierry’s grandfather more than 70 years ago. The combination of altitude, rocky, limestone-rich soils (with next to no topsoil) and the sunny aspect delivers the holy grail of both deep minerality and concentration—the kind of combination normally reserved for the Grand Crus.

This part of La Romanée is often the last vineyard to ripen in Chassagne, perhaps because of the altitude but also because the lack of topsoil makes the vines struggle hard. Just to point to the complexity of Burgundy and the pure folly of trying to simplify things—Vincent Dancer, whose La Romanée vines sit at the foot of this same vineyard, often picks this vineyard first, while the Pillots typically pick their La Romanée last. Yet both wines have similar ripeness!