Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pouilly-Fuissé Hors-Classe Les Ménétrières is similarly superb, offering up aromas of fresh peach, white flowers, green apple, orange oil and warm bread. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, satiny and multidimensional, with considerable muscle and concentration despite its elegant profile, structured around chewy dry extract and a lively girdle of acidity, and concluding with a long, saline finish. This brilliant Pouilly-Fuissé will amply reward bottle age. Rating: 94+
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Wine Spectator
Creamy in texture and vibrant in structure, saturated by lime, pastry, lemon and stone flavors, this white is intense and beautifully balanced, revealing a lingering aftertaste of peach, lime blossom and mineral. Drink now through 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine has good acidity to give texture and minerality to its fruitiness. This freshness contrasts with the ripe fruit of the vintage. It also suggests some aging potential, so drink from 2020.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
The source of some of the most sought-after white wines of the Mâconnais, Pouilly-Fuissé is produced exclusively from the Chardonnay grape and tends to be slightly richer in style than wines from its northern neighbor, the Côte de Beaune—mainly due to warmer weather. Wines from Pouilly-Fuissé have some versatility; they can be enjoyed young and can also often improve with a little time in the cellar. Pouilly-Fuissé wines are considered some of the best values for white Burgundy.
Similar to the Côte de Beaune, the soils of Pouilly-Fuissé are mainly limestone and clay. The appellation includes the communes of Fuissé, Solutré (which includes Pouilly), Vergisson and Chaintré. The richest Chardonnay comes from Fuissé and Solutré-Pouilly, whereas the Chardonnay at higher elevation, from Vergisson, expresses more minerality and finesse. Pairing Pouilly-Fuissé with lobster or King Crab will bring great joy not only to your palate—but also your pocketbook!