Famille Paquet Saint-Veran En Creches 2021 Front Bottle Shot
Famille Paquet Saint-Veran En Creches 2021 Front Bottle Shot Famille Paquet Saint-Veran En Creches 2021 Front Label

Winemaker Notes

Professional Ratings

  • 93

    Here’s an impressive Saint-Veran from the challenging 2021 vintage. Good mid-palate richness and concentration with a touch of caramelized-pineapple character alongside the abundant candied-citrus aromas. Elegant acidity for the vintage at the long, subtly chalky finish. From organically grown grapes from vines planted between 1943 and 2009. Fermented and matured in oak casks for 12 months, then matured for a further 9 months in stainless steel.

Famille Paquet

Famille Paquet

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Famille Paquet Winery Video

In 2016 Camille and Mathieu Paquet took over their family's estate located in the village of Davayé, which at the time was called Domaine des Valanges. Davayé is within the appellation of Saint-Veran in the Macon, and much of the winery’s holdings are inside this appellation as well. Formerly, Domaine des Valanges was producing typical Macon wines, that is to say, big volume wines at a low price. They were solid but nothing noteworthy and mostly destined for volume distribution. The Paquet brothers really wanted to do something of quality and not just continue to make "grocery store wine," if you will, so they started by changing the name to Famille Paquet and, over the years, have steadily been making improvements and investments. They converted to Organic farming and have since converted to Biodynamics and will be certified in 2023. They constructed a state-of-the-art new winery in which they were able to vinify the 2022 vintage. This allowed them to move out of their literal garage, giving them much more space. There is no more pumping as the grapes and wines are now moved solely by gravity, and the extra space means longer elevage times and investment in more tanks and barrels. In the garage, they had to bottle earlier because they had no room so the maximum ageing time was a year. Now for many of the cuvees, you will see 12-18 months before bottling, resulting in more complex wines. Lastly, they changed their vine training to effectively reduce yields by almost half. Previously they were farming like most in the Macon and averaged around 75 hl/ha, whereas now they aim for 45 hl/ha in a good year. All of these investments and improvements have resulted in wines that are several steps up in quality from the early vintages. These are now serious white burgundies, and Famille Paquet is positioning itself among the first tier of producers in the Macon region.

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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.

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St-Véran

Maconnais, Burgundy

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Occupying vineyards to the west and south of the village of Mâcon, the appellation of St-Véran interweaves with Pouilly-Fuissé, overlapping both the Mâconnais and Beaujolais. St-Véran includes a lot of what was once sold as Beaujolais Blanc. Grown on limestone, St-Véran whites' ageability and power fall somewhere in between the wines of Mâcon-Villages and Pouilly-Fuissé.

After subtle aromas of lemon, apricot, acacia and honeysuckle, on the palate a St-Véran (always made of Chardonnay) shows fresh focus and clarity while exhibiting roundness and harmonious balance. A great St-Véran will express notes of almond, hazelnut, cinnamon, butter or toast and sometimes an exotic twist of orange peel. Seafood risotto or pasta with mushrooms are perfect pairings.

TNSDN4223_2021 Item# 3199455