Chandon de Briailles Savigny les Beaune Aux Fournaux 2018

100% Pinot Noir. Chandon de Briailles was established in 1834. Fast forward to when Claude de Nicolay took over from her mother as winemaker in 1988 and now crafts traditionally styled wines from the great terroirs of the Côte d'Or. Already in the early 1980's Nicolay's mother, Nadine, stopped using any herbicides or pesticides in the vineyards and the vineyards have been organic since 1998. Francois de Nicolay, after running a wine shop in Paris for several years, joined his sister at the domaine in 2001. Through his experience of tasting wines from all over France, he became interested in biodynamic farming and by 2005, the vineyard management was fully biodynamic. Since 2014, they have been working with training the vines higher and longer, which gives the vines' protection from the sun/shade for the grapes, and also allows for more photosynthesis, giving the plant more energy. In the cellar, no enological products are used (except for sulfur in very small quantities) and their wines are quite unique in the fact that there is a negligible amount of new oak for aging and most wines are made with a whole-cluster fermentation. Aging is carried out in mostly used barrels (up to eight years old). The maximum amount of new oak, even on the grand cru wines is 20%. All of the wines are bottled without fining or filtration. The Chandon de Briailles wines are truly gems within the Côte d'Or. They are not quite like any other Burgundy. This is why William Kelley of the Wine Advocate wrote, "...for my money, these are among the small handful of wines that realize the true potential of the hill of Corton—to say nothing of the domaine's reference-point wines from Savigny-lès-Beaune and Pernand-Vergelesses."