Log in for prices and ordering
Terrific Values from the Mâconnais and Chablis
For many of our clients, Jean-Marie Guffens should need no introduction. After all, this outspoken, iconoclastic grower and his piercingly bright, limpid wines—both under his Guffens-Heynen and Verget (micro-négoce) labels—have been in our white Burgundy portfolio since day one.
In his watershed book The New France (Mitchell Beazley, 2002), Andrew Jefford describes the Verget style in the following way: “Don't buy Verget wines looking for the kind of cheese paste, farm straw richness of traditional “funky” white Burgundy; these are white wines made with the kind of ravishing purity, compelling sensual austerity more familiar among the greatest winemakers of the Saar, the Ruwer, or Alsace.” That pretty much sums things up.
For those new to the Verget style, winemaker Jean-Marie Guffens perhaps summed it up best when he told us: “I am Flemish, I love purity.”
Guffens believes that lees stirring and reduction are embellishments used in white Burgundy to disguise shortcomings (much as dosage and lees aging are used in Champagne). He, therefore, avoids reduction while also bottling under screwcap. He wants you to taste the fruit in all its purity.
Although, as the French would say, this is a grower who cannot keep his tongue in his pocket, Guffens’ longstanding reputation as the enfant terrible of Burgundy has softened somewhat over the years. We cannot say whether or not this is due to the arrival of the quietly spoken Julian Desplans, now Verget’s chief winemaker of five years. What is clear is that Guffens’ fastidious lieutenant— whose CV includes a stint at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti—has instilled an impressive measure of articulate consistency across the entire Verget portfolio.
It's important to point out that while Verget’s grapes are négoce, the estate works only with low yields, and it is Guffens’ team that conducts the harvest, discarding any substandard material. Then, in the cellar, Desplans works almost exclusively with free-run juices. Ferments are natural and occur in Verget’s large horizontal stainless-steel tanks that offer the same lees to wine ratio as oak barrels. Here, the lees can be worked delicately with nitrogen without introducing any oxygen into the vessel. Guffens and Desplans want you to taste the fruit in all its purity.
There’s enticing aromas of white peach, beach grass and floral notes leading to a layered, textured palate threaded with sappy freshness and a chalky, savoury complexity that works so well with the Burgundian amplitude on offer. It’s a delicious value wine, with impressive bang-for-your-buck intensity and drive, closing with a salty, lees-enriched finish.
It’s a beautifully pitched, coiled white Burgundy, with cool stone fruit and lemon rind, giving way to a mouthcoating texture and orange and crème fraîche flavours. The beautifully tailored palate combines silky suppleness and pulsating energy, tapering to a chalk-infused finish. This would very easily slip into a tasting of more expensive wines from the Côte-d’Or.
AT-A-GLANCE • Maison Verget was established in 1990 as the négociant arm of Burgundy star Jean-Marie Guffens. • Guffens sources his Verget fruit predominantly from Mâcon, with supplementary sources from serious, like-minded growers in Chablis and southern France. • Operations are in the hands of Guffens’s right-hand man, Julien Desplans, who joined the project in 2006. • Vinification for the mostly white range includes single-plot fermentations and lees-aging in various vessels, including barrel, foudre, steel tanks and cement vats. • The range is wide, encompassing up to 15 wines in any given year from the Bourgogne, Mâcon-Villages, Saint-Véran and Pouilly-Fuissé appellations. • There is also a selection of southern French reds and whites that offer excellent value for money. IN THE PRESS “Jean-Marie Guffens's Verget label continues to be a reference point for the Mâconnais. The best cuvées very much belong among the Mâconnais's élite, but this portfolio is also rich with terrific values to purchase by the case that would make ideal daily drinkers or by-the-glass pours. Classy but keenly priced white Burgundy isn't easy to come by these days, so we should all be thankful for the Maison Verget. These wines come warmly recommended.” William Kelley, The Wine Advocate
Country
France
Primary Region
Mâconnais
People
Winemakers: Jean-Marie Guffens and Julian Desplans
Availability
National