Domaine Goisot Bourgogne Aligote 2018

Domaine Goisot Bourgogne Aligote 2018 is showing wonderful aromatic expressions of tree fruit like pears, citrus, and hawthorn, with a finish reminding hazelnuts. Fruity notes on a background of minerality, white flowers, and spices, with a slightly nutty finish.

Value is is an understatement at this world-class Domaine. The Goisot estate is worked biodynamically and is certified by Demeter. For the last few years, they have decided to increase their plantation density in order to decrease the vigourisity of the wines and to promote the competition between the plants.

Tucked away in the small village of Saint-Bris between Chablis and Auxerre, Domaine Goisot really deserves to be better known. The single-vineyard Chardonnays are a revelation. Guilhem and father Jean-Hugues Goisot, like all top vignerons in France, recognise that great wine comes from great viticulture, and they work tirelessly in the vines to ensure that their parcels are as well treated as is possible. Their viticulture is certified biodynamic, with great pains taken to produce as natural an environment for the wines, with a particular goal of stimulating the natural defenses of the wines against disease and depredation. Yields are also kept very low by Saint-Bris standards, in an effort to produce world-class white wines that defy the dictates of the late nineteenth century officials who downgraded Saint-Bris and cast it from the Chablisienne constellation. The results are a bevy of beautifully made wines, low sulphur, natural, vegan wines, that have a very strong following in France and offer absolutely brilliant price-quality rapport. The wines across the board are deep, racy and soil-driven, with a transparent expression of underlying chalky terroir as any in Chablis proper.

The estate has worked organically since 1993 and is nowadays certified biodynamic. Their goal is to concentrate their efforts on the potential of this terroir. The soil in Chablis is known as Kimmeridgian. Located in a sedimentary basin, this low-lying zone was gradually covered by the material that today make up the soil and subsoil of this wine region. One finds subsoils of grey marl which alternate with bands of limestone, sometimes very rich in fossils of Exogyra virgula, a small oyster that is characteristic of the marl from the Middle and Upper Kimmeridgian.

“Price tag notwithstanding, these natural wines deserve a higher profile and the truth of the matter is that quality is shoulder-to-shoulder with far more famous labels…delicious, complex and thought-provoking wine does not only come from the most famous areas, especially when winemakers are as talented and dedicated as Goisot.” Neal Martin