Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru 'En Virondot', Philippe Pacalet, 2024
Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru 'En Virondot', Philippe Pacalet, 2024
- 75cl
- 13%
- White Still
- Chardonnay
- Organic
- Biodynamic
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Optimal drinking window: 2028 - 2038
Philippe Pacalet is one of Burgundy's most singular figures — a trained winemaker who spent years at Prieuré-Roch and is Marcel Lapierre's nephew, which tells you everything about where his instincts lie. His wines are made with indigenous yeasts, minimal sulphur, and no new oak to speak of. En Virondot is a Premier Cru at the northern tip of Chassagne-Montrachet, where the soils tighten and the wines carry more nervous energy than many of their richer southern neighbours. The 2024 vintage delivered freshness across Burgundy, and for a site like this, that's a gift.
Philippe was clear that while yields were historically low, the payoff is in the glass. Aromatic clarity, saline finishes and finely judged tannins run through the range, and the wines show real charm already alongside the structure to age. A year where selection mattered enormously, and in Pacalet’s hands, the results are compelling.
Philippe Pacalet is one of Tim Atkin's 2024 Top 15 Négociants & Cooperatives.
En Virondot sits on the upper slopes of Chassagne-Montrachet, where soils are dominated by hard Bathonian limestone and white oolitic rock, with relatively thin topsoil. This gives the wines a stony, mineral quality quite different from the richer, clay-influenced lower plots. The elevation brings cooler temperatures and a longer growing season, which preserves freshness and acidity — exactly what Pacalet's vinification style is designed to express.
Chassagne-Montrachet is one of the great white wine villages of the Côte de Beaune, sharing the famed Montrachet grand cru with Puligny to the north. At premier cru level, the wines tend to be more structured and mineral than Meursault, and slightly fuller than Puligny, though generalisations rarely hold in a village with such varied soils and exposures. En Virondot is one of Chassagne's quieter premier cru names — less celebrated than Les Caillerets or La Maltroie — but consistently produces wines of real definition and age-worthiness.
The 2024 growing season in Burgundy was, frankly, a test of nerve. A wet spring brought significant mildew pressure, and vignerons who stayed sharp in the vineyard — working fast, keeping canopies open, reducing yields where necessary — came out the other side with something worth talking about. Summer brought warmer, drier conditions that helped the fruit recover composure, and harvest arrived broadly on the later side, with growers picking carefully to find phenolic ripeness without sacrificing freshness. Quantity was down across much of the Côte, which concentrates minds as much as it concentrates wine.
What emerged is a vintage that rewards those who put the work in. The Pinots we have tasted carry real precision and translucency — not because they are light, but because the acidity is lively and the fruit unforced. Chardonnays from the Côte de Beaune look particularly promising: taut, mineral, with genuine length. This is not a vintage to panic-open. Most village and premier cru reds want three to five years at minimum, with the better appellations drinking well until 2035 and beyond. The whites are more approachable now, though the best will reward patience too.
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