Burgundy Club: August 2025

This August Burgundy club release marks the 1st anniversary of Burgundy club! The talk right now involves a lot of tariffs and a bad exchange rate, but we have been collecting Burgundy for the club for 1 year to hopefully help offset the resulting price increases. The other piece of good news is that an astute Burgundy buyer can always find value by exploring options. The value is never in the marquis name Grand Crus but on the fringes where quality is appreciated by the drinker, not the collector. 

Today, though, we are staying full center of the Cote d'Or with 3 excellent producers represented. 

White Wine (both club levels): Francois Mikulski Bourgogne Cote d'Or Chardonnay 2023

François Mikulski is a relative newcomer in Meursault, having bottled his first vintage in the early 1990s, but his wines have since become fixtures among the Côte de Beaune’s most sought-after. His labels are instantly recognizable—stark, hand‑lettered designs on clear backgrounds that stand apart in a region steeped in tradition. While he produces a small amount of red, Mikulski is best known for his whites, which channel the generous richness of Meursault and its neighboring villages while holding onto a sense of clarity and drive that makes them feel almost weightless.

François Mikulski’s 2023 Bourgogne Côte d’Or Chardonnay comes from two small parcels just outside the Meursault boundary—one planted in 1986 and the other in 2005—totaling about 1.5 hectares. Since taking over his first vines in the early ’90s, Mikulski has farmed them with a restrained, largely organic approach and low‑intervention winemaking. The vineyards sit on lower‑slope soils with fine alluvial material, giving the wine a softer, rounder expression that hints at Meursault’s generosity without carrying the weight or cost of a village designation. This wine is consistently among my favorite "entry level" Chardonnays from all of Burgundy and is a dead ringer for Meursault in a blind tasting. 

Red Wine (village level): Sylvain Pataille Marsannay Le Chapitre 2021

I featured this wine in the odd month club a few months ago - read that blog post here.

Red Wine (1er Cru Club): Armand Heitz Volnay 1er Cru Taillepieds 2022

Taillepieds is a mid‑slope premier cru of Volnay, and one of its best, with soils built on limestone mixed with clay and some thin topsoil, allowing the vines to draw both energy and tension from the earth. Armand Heitz farms about 0.37 hectares of this designated parcel, with vines planted in 1964 and 1999. The vines on this site tend to produce wines with a firm backbone and spicy floral aromatics—think rose petals and darker raspberry tones—that give the wine depth without overpowering finesse.

Armand Heitz represents a younger wave of Burgundy producers, taking over his family’s domaine in Chassagne-Montrachet in 2011. Until 2013 the wines were bottled under the name Domaine Heitz-Locherdet. He now farms organically with biodynamic influences and keeps his winemaking straightforward—low new oak, minimal intervention, and a focus on letting each vineyard site show clearly. While he makes both reds and whites, his Volnay bottlings in particular have earned a reputation for their purity and balance, showing ripe fruit framed by fine structure rather than weight or excess.

The 2022 Volnay Taillepieds was made entirely with whole clusters and aged for about fourteen months in barrel, with only a small portion of new oak. The approach is light-handed, aiming to highlight the vineyard’s natural perfume and texture rather than dress it up. The result is a wine that feels lifted and vibrant, with red fruit and spice layered over subtle tannins—serious enough to age, but graceful enough to drink young as so many great red Burgundies are today.