Domaine Bachelet-Monnot Puligny-Montrachet 2012

In the film ‘Léon: The Professional’, a hit man cares for his Chinese Evergreen plant with endearing tenderness. Now, while we are in no way suggesting that brothers Marc and Alexandre Bachelet are anything like Léon, they ARE French, and they DO tend to their plants with devoted love, care and attention. But there the similarities stop: while Léon finds himself caring for a young orphan, Marc and Alexandre spend their time making wines of distinction such as this, which has all the elegance, exhilarating purity and fresh orchard fruit you could wish for in a Puligny-Montrachet. That probably wouldn’t make for as good a plot line though…

In January 2005, after years of travelling France and the rest of the world gaining vital wine-making experience two budding young vignerons, brothers Marc and Alexandre Bachelet, set up this Domaine that spans 10 hectares over the Maranges, Santenay and Puligny-Montrachet communes. With a buring desire to work with nature to make the finest possible wines, Marc and Alexandre adopt a very natural labour-intensive approach to wine-making. Soils are ploughed, vine health careful monitored, herbicides are forbidden and strict de-budding is carried out to limit yields, whilst all grapes are hand-picked at optimum ripeness. This Domaine is a rapidly rising star. 50% new oak is employed for Grand Crus and the red Maranges whilst a little less is used for the 1er Crus. The wines are aged through two winters bottling early or late winter depending on the vintage and the appellation.
Intense and tight-wound but so fine, real Puligny class and elegance; taut but rich flavours of citrus, lemon rind, butter and stone, the most complex villages the Bachelet brothers have made. From a fine villages plot on a slope called ‘les Meix’, near the Grands Crus, next to Enseigneurs.