Domaine Simon Gaudet Beaune 1er Cru Les Champimonts 2022

This Beaune 1er Cru Les Champimonts comes from a 50-are plot in the Champimonts climat, on the hill of the famous Clos des Mouches, south of Beaune, in the heart of the Côte de Beaune. Facing due east, the vine takes root in sandy soil resting on a generous clay base. The wind coming from the combe of Bouze-lès-Beaune brings precious freshness, ensuring a slow and harmonious ripening of the Chardonnay.

Winemaking begins with skin-contact maceration, with no sulphur added at this stage, to preserve the authenticity of the grapes. The wine ferments and then ages on fine lees for 12 months in French oak barrels, a third of them new. This measured ageing refines the texture while allowing the freshness and floral radiance of the terroir to shine through.

This wine reveals notes of yellow peach, apricot, mirabelle plum, lemon, hawthorn, acacia blossom, star anise, fresh almond and chalk. The bouquet charms from the very first sniff with its elegance. On the palate, the wine is crystalline, carried by lovely freshness from its clay terroir, with a delicate, luminous finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.