For wine lovers, the word “Burgundy” alone evokes the soul of wine, finesse and terroir, where
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are kings! Even if these are not the only grape varieties grown on
these lands! I promise I’ll come back to it one day in a column devoted to this famous French
wine region.

Today, I’d like to devote this focus to a winegrower, or rather a family of winegrowers, who
have been working in the Maconnais vineyards in southern Burgundy since the beginning of the
twentieth century, where the sun warms up the Chardonnay vines a little more and for longer!
The ROBERT-DENOGENT family, or should I say “the clan”, work their 14 hectares of organic
and biodynamic soil, vines and wines with passion and authenticity!

A quick visit to their website will tell you that these are good fellows, merry men, bon vivants,
whose sole aim is to make wines that are like them, honest, sincere, without artifice, make-up or
inputs, and to do honor to the soils they have the good fortune to tread and which it is essential
to know how to respect and enhance!That said, you’ll easily understand their low-interventionist approach, long maturation periods (minimum 30 months) and the time given to each wine to find its place, even if it means letting the ageing continue until they feel it’s ready to drink!

I can assure you that the pleasure of tasting a wine, from the moment it is bottled or after years
of ageing, is well worth the patient wait!

When I went to see them, it was Antoine (brother of Nicolas, with whom he’s been running the
estate since 2015) who welcomed us: bonhomie, a smile on his lips, a mischievous little air of a
kid who’s about to do something forbidden but is looking forward to it! The round face, the full
lips of a man who loves life and its pleasures, good old-fashioned bowling, the embodiment of
what the world of wine is all about: smiles, glasses and moments of sharing!

His explanations are precise and pedagogical, so that everyone can understand the choices he
makes in terms of vineyard management, the manual harvesting of fully ripe grapes, the
vinification stages, the long pressings lasting over 4 hours, the multiple and successive containers
(old barrels, stainless steel vats, concrete vats, amphoras) to ensure the transparency, structure
and balance of the juices.

His speech is passionate and voluble, punctuated by unforgettable punch lines such as “go?te
trop bien sa m?re” (“taste your mother too well”), an expression taken from French slang to say
that it’s a killer, it’s too good – “un f?t c’est comme un slip, ?a ne se pr?te pas” (“a barrel is like
underwear, it can’t be lent”) to reject second-hand barrels in which you don’t know what’s been
in them…

Meanwhile, he fills our glasses for a tasting you’re sure to envy!

Let’s start with the appellations:
Macon village les Sardines: a blend of Chardonnays from several terroirs, a fresh wine to
be enjoyed young, with aromas and flavors that develop on the palate. St V?ran parcellaire “les pommards”: a very fresh wine, well-balanced by its fine acidity and bitter finish!

We then move on to the Pouilly Fuiss? appellations :
Pouilly Fuiss? La Croix: the estate’s flagship cuv?e, benefiting from blue schist soil and a
minimum of 3 years’ ageing! It has a brilliant golden color, its nose assumes its floral panoply,
and the palate its greediness and roundness of aromas!

Pouilly Fuiss? les Cras 1er cru: A highly aromatic cuv?e, aged in concrete vats and old
barrels that leave their mark; the fruit is fresh and delicate, but the wine is no less powerful!
Pouilly Fuiss? les Reisses 1er cru: This parcel is located next to that of Les Cras, and
produces such a different wine! These old vines are planted in shallow clay, and produce a wine
that takes my heart! If fruit and white truffles perfume the nose, the palate is round, delicate,
buttery like a velvet ribbon in a hand of freshness; majestic in its length, the wine goes on and
on releasing aromas and energy. Magistral!

As Jean D’Ormesson would say, “there are endless days, months and years when almost
nothing happens. There are minutes and seconds that contain a whole world”.

These few hours spent at the estate are among them.

Even if it’s not easy to get hold of a few bottles of these Burgundies, so highly prized by
connoisseurs, you may well find them on a fine restaurant table! You’ll find all the addresses in
France on their website – they don’t let their friends down!

I’ll end with a few words written by the clan that sum up who they are!
“Gourmand and sincere, these are certainly the 2 words that best describe our family. With
their boundless appetite for the terroirs of Fuiss? and their generosity, our forebears have
worked their vines and produced straightforward, balanced and sincere wines!

It’s thanks to Anita, our mother, and Jean-Jacques, our father, that today we have this
approach to our profession, our love of good things…and our sense of humor.”

Myriam Perret / La Cave de Platonie