Domaine Hubert Lamy Saint-Aubin Premier Cru Clos de la Chateniere Vieilles Vignes, 2021, 75cl

The 2021 Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Clos de la Chatenière unwinds in the glass with aromas of peach and pear mingled with iodine, wheat toast and gunflint and framed by a deft touch of youthful reduction. Medium to full-bodied, layered and chalky, with a deep core of fruit and tangy acids that carry through the finish, it will reward bottle age. Oliver Lamy managed to remain remarkably sanguine during the devastating 2021 frosts, which hit Saint-Aubin especially hard, even if late pruning managed to to reduce some of the damage. Since the shock weakened the vines, even if it also radically diminished potential yields, the answer was more work in the vineyards to fight against disease and to mitigate stress—hedging canopies by hand or interweaving their shoots without cutting and, of course, regular phytosanitary treatments. Come harvest, Lamy wasn't all that confident, yet he risked keeping lots of lees in white, and stems in red—and it worked. Of course, these chiseled, electric and concentrated wines are built for the long haul. They clearly surpass their counterparts in 2016, another heavily frosted vintage. They're not made to impress tasters who privilege aroma over texture or winemaking artifice over site expression. But, they are more than worthy of a vigneron whose tireless efforts over the last 25 years are now consistently delivering some of contemporary Burgundy's greatest wines. Whether it's cutting-edge viticulture, including plantings at over 20,000 vines per hectare and unhedged canopies, extended maturation on the lees, which now amounts to 24 months in total, 23 of those in largely neutral wood, obsessive attention to closures and bottling practices or a host of other small details that, cumulatively, make the difference between the best and the rest, Lamy has spared nothing to get to where he is today. While his ultra-rare Haute Densité bottlings are now almost impossible to source, readers will still find it easy to secure his more modest cuvées. Forget them in the cellar for a decade and reap the rewards!