Puligny-Montrachet, the Grace Kelly of Wines | Jay McInerney on Wine - WSJ

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ON WINE

The Grace Kelly of Wines

The white Burgundies of Puligny-Montrachet have an angular beauty;
'seeking the unconscious of the earth'

Ms. Kelly brought Montrachet and a meal from the '21' club to Jimmy Stewart in 'Rear Window.' PARAMOUNT
PICTURES/PHOTOFEST

By JAY MCINERNEY
Updated Aug. 28, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET
The first time I remember drinking white Burgundy was in 1985, shortly after I returned
to Manhattan after a sojourn at graduate school. The bottle in question was a birthday
present from my second wife, a 1982 Carillon Puligny-Montrachet. I'm not entirely sure
whether it was a premier cru, from one of the vineyards on the middle slope of the gentle
rising hillside adjacent to the famous grand-cru Montrachet vineyard, or a simple village
wine from the lowland vineyards, but I was blown away when I tasted the wine and
Puligny-Montrachet immediately became my favorite special-occasion white.

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Over the years I've learned to love Meursault, Chassagne Montrachet and even select
New World Chardonnays, but I've always maintained a soft spot for the wines of Puligny,
a small village on the lower slope of the famous hillside known as the Ctes d'Or.
Puligny-Montrachet is located in the southernmost part of the region, the Ctes de
Beaune, home of the best white Burgundies, made exclusively from the Chardonnay
grape. In 1879 the tiny village of Puligny, in an effort to boost its own profile and the
price of its wine, attached its own name to that of its most famous vineyard. Le
Montrachet had long been hailed as the world's greatest dry white wine; Claude Arnoux,
writing in 1728 could find no words in either French or Latin to describe its splendors (an
example that wine critics should sometimes ponder) and Thomas Jefferson was a big fan;
after tasting the 1782 vintage he ordered an entire 130-gallon cask, according to John
Hallman's "Thomas Jefferson on Wine." Must have been some party. More recently,
Montrachet was the wine that Grace Kelly brought over to wheelchair-bound Jimmy
Stewart's apartment in "Rear Window," along with a meal from the '21' club. I think I'd
willingly break my own leg for that kind of delivery.
The

Chteau de Puligny-Montrache CEPHAS/ALAMY

problem, from the point of view of a thirsty world, is that there are only 20 acres of this
hallowed ground. However, the adjacent hillsides, with their similar aspects and
limestone-rich geology, produce wines with a distinct family resemblance often
approaching the level of the Big M. (Why Montrachet produces wines that have long been
judged to be superior to, and far more expensive than, vines a few feet away across a dirt
road is a question for a book-length analysis.)

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So it was natural, not to say a brilliant move on the part of the mayor of Puligny, to
append the name of it most famous vineyard to the name of his obscure village.
Unfortunately for Puligny, though, the vineyard of Montrachet straddled the border
between Puligny and the village of Chassagne, and the residents of that village, hearing of
Puligny's application, quickly followed suit. "And thus the bigamous marriage was
proclaimed, on 27 November 1879," writes Simon Loftus in his book "PulignyMontrachet." "Puligny became Puligny-Montrachet at the same time as Chassagne took
the same partner, from that day forth." The two villages had a long history of rivalry,
which was exacerbated by the shared name. While I love some of the wines of Chassagne,
I find myself more frequently drawn to the wines of Puligny, which seem to me to have
greater precision and refinement. When I ask Jacques Lardires, the winemaker at Louis
Jadot, which makes some five different Pulignys, what it is that distinguished the wine of
that commune from its neighbors, he answers simply "aristocracy." This is a very short
answer for the garrulous genius of Jadot (who explains winemaking as the process of
"seeking the unconscious of the earth.") but I think I know what he means. Even without
that takeout scene in "Rear Window," Grace Kelly might easily come to mind.

OENOFILE

Puligny-Montrachet: Six wines to try

F. MARTIN RAMIN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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2007 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatires,

$150
From the greatest of all Puligny producers, the kind of wine that should be delivered
by Grace Kelly. Very vibrant and intense, with a honeysuckle nose, a silky texture
and a heart of stone.

2007 Carillon Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes, $119

A stunning wine, with piercing high notes that reminded me why Daniel Johnnes
compares great Puligny to a violin concerto.

Henri Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Clos des Mouchre, $100

From a privileged site in the premier-cru Perrires vineyard, this is a very rich, fleshy
Puligny with a powerful underlying structure.

2007 Louis Jadot Puligny-Montrachet, $45

A very well balanced, crisp, classic Puligny with a touch of green apple, citrus and
stone.

2007 Ramonet Puligny-Montrachet Les Ensegnires, $42

A medium-bodied, complex Puligny from the great maker of Chassagne Montrachet,
more elegant and mineral than his wines from the rival commune.

2008 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Puligny-Montrachet Le Trezin,

$50
A really intense village wine from high up on the slope the hill where the soil is thin
and the vines struggle. Really fine, vibrant Puligny.

Mr. Lardires took me on a tour of the great white-wine vineyards of the Ctes de
Beaune, pointing out the different vineyards, sometimes distinguished by tangible
boundaries like a stream bed, or a road, and sometimes invisible, reflecting a shift in the
bedrock, or soil type. The untrained eye may not see the borders, but a thousand years of
observation and tasting have drawn the lines.

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As we drove north from Santenay we passed the vineyards of Chassagne and shortly
arrived at the holiest of holies, the walled vineyard of Montrachet, which is located midslope of the hill, the sweet spot. For such a famous piece of real estate the landscape is
not very dramatica 10-degree slope ribboned with vines. Below Montrachet, on a
gentler slope (5 degrees), is Btard-Montrachet, also a grand cru, and above it on the
steepest part of the hill (20 degrees) is Chevalier-Montrachet. Thanks to erosion,
Chevalier has very sparse soil, some of which ends up downhill at Btard; the wines of
Chevalier are generally thought to be leaner and more elegant, those of Btard fatter and
richer. Montrachet, in the middle is said to strike a balance between the two. I can vouch
for these generalizations thanks to the generosity of several movie studios that employed
me in the early '90s. I spent fair amount of Paramount's and Universal's money
comparing these three grand crus at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, which for
some reason was well stocked with older vintages from Bouchard Pre et Fils.
To the north of the grand crus, on the same southeast-facing slope, are the premier crus
of Puligny-Montrachet. I learned to love these wines after the demise of my screenwriting
career and in fact they can attain similar heights, occasionally even surpassing the grand
crus in the hands of great producers like tienne Sauzet and Domaine Leflaive, the ne
plus ultra maker of Puligny. The vineyards higher on the hill, like Le Caillerets and
Champ Gains, tend to yield somewhat more structured, flintier wines while those lower
down, contiguous with Btard, tend to be rounder, though still marked by a mineral note.
The flatlands below the hill produce the so-called village wines, the third declension of
greatness. These wines are entitled to be called Puligny-Montrachet, but the vineyard
itself is generally not specified.

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Shortly after touring the great Chardonnay vineyards of Beaune with Jacques Lardires, I
retraced our journey in the cellars of Jadot, tasting through the wines of Chassagne,
Puligny, and Meursault. Remarkably, each vineyard had a distinct flavor profile; but the
Pulignys seemed to me more high-toned, more minerally and more vivid than their
neighbors. More recently, I repeated this experiment in the less austere surroundings of
Daniel Boulud's DBGB in Manhattan, with the wines of most of the top producers of
Pulignyand a few Chassagnes and Meursaults thrown in for good measure, with the
help of Daniel Johnnes, the wine director of Mr. Boulud's restaurant group, who spends a
good deal of time in Burgundy. Even with many different winemaker's signatures, a
decisive Puligny character was evident. "There's an energy and a tension in Puligny," Mr.
Johnnes said. "Chassagne and Meursault are softer, less high-toned." Inevitably we
started comparing these great white Burgundies with women and we agreed that a
Puligny was a beauty with distinctive bone structure, slightly more angular than
curvaceous. I mentioned the model Carmen Dell'Orefice; Daniel countered with Gwyneth
Paltrow, though I still think it's hard to improve on the Grace Kelly analogy, one which
seemed all the more apt as we moved on to older wines from the '92, '93 and '95 vintages.

ON WINE

Montrachet and its Neighbors

Tasting Wine Blind
The Pleasures of Portugal

Puligny acquires great complexity with

age, and the best premier and grand crus
can improve for decades, although the
village-level wines can often be enjoyed on
release. The 2007 vintage, the current
release for most makers, was much more
successful for white burgundy than for
red. In fact, tasting through more than a

dozen '07s, we didn't encounter a single

dud, with the exception of one bottle that was corked.
I haven't spoken to my second wife in many years, but when and if I do I should probably
thank her for that first bottle of Puligny-Montrachet.

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