Niellon 2024

Domaine Michel Niellon has been a producer I have followed for the past 30 years. In my early days, this was very much a reference-point estate, crafting some of the most compelling White Burgundy wines I had ever been exposed to. Like many domaines during that period, however, the wines were aging at an alarming rate, which caused a lot of collectors to shy away from them. I will admit that I was very much in that camp and did not purchase any of the wines from 2007 through 2016.

I visited the domaine in 2018 and met with Michel Coutoux. We tasted the recently bottled 2017s, and from the very first sip of the Chassagne village I was mesmerized by the wines. Linear, focused, with razor-sharp acidity, everything you could ask for from a first-rate producer. As good as the wines were, the conversation eventually moved toward the premox issue. No one will give you a definitive answer because no one can say exactly what causes it, or in Niellon’s case, what caused it. Michel was fairly certain that the issue was related to the cork and told me they made the decision in 2010 to begin bottling under the Diam closure. We tasted a few 2010s during the visit and, although the wines had never left the estate, there was an amazing freshness to them. I will also say that I have not encountered a premoxed Niellon from any vintage since 2010 in probably 20 or so bottles opened.

The wines have never been better! Although 2024 was a very trying growing season, the domaine has once again turned out another set of reference-point Chassagne-Montrachets. I only wish I had more of them to sell. The Chaumées, as always, is one not to miss.

Wines expected late Spring / Early Summer