Julien Guillot, "Cuvée 910" 2023

2 BTL MAX/CUSTOMER

One of the most special wines in the world... a commemoration of the Clos des Vignes du Maynes, the walled vineyard planted around 900AD and the first wine ever produced for the Abbey of Cluny around 910. It is an homage to how the wine would have been 1100 years ago. It is, as such, a co-ferment of old vines of strains of Gamay, Pinot & Chardonnay up their family trees, such as Pinot Fin & Gamay à Petits-Grains. Grapes are hand-harvested, foot-pressed and spontaneously ferment and age in neutral barrel prior to bottling-by-hand the following spring unfined, unfiltered, no additional SO2. 13%ABV

From the wine writer Aaron Ayscough's The World of Natural Wine, this is one of 4 wines-to-know from his Burgundy chapter, i.e. standard-bearing Natural Burgundy Unicorns:

Embodying the experimentalist nature that natural winemaking has brought to Burgundy, Julien Guillot's Cuvée 910 is a short-macerated blend of old-vine Chardonnay, Pinot Fin (an ancient tight-bunched variant of Pinot Noir), and Gamay à Petits Grains (an ancient small-berried variant of Gamay) from his best parcels. The wine is an homage to the historical winemaking methods of the Clunisien monks: a razor-fine elixir of sappy red fruit and candied citrus. The wine's transluscent, brickish color belies an admirable intensity.