The Land
Savigny-lès-Beaune sits in the mouth of the Rhoin valley, a notch cut into the côte just north of Beaune, and the cross-draft through that combe makes it one of the cooler addresses in the Côte de Beaune. Les Goudelettes is a village-level climat rather than a premier cru, and it sits on the plateau overlooking the village, among the very highest parcels in the commune, near the entrance to the combe at roughly 300 to 350 meters. The soil is stony clay and limestone that drains hard. The exposure is east, so the vines take the morning sun and give it up early. Everything about the site points the same direction: a cool terroir that ripens slowly and yields delicate, high-toned Pinot Noir rather than dense Pinot Noir. In a warm year that is an advantage. In 2024 it made this wine what it is.
The Wine
One hundred percent Pinot Noir at 12.5 percent alcohol. Hand-harvested, given a short maceration in a small stainless tank cooled only at vatting, fermented with ambient yeast and worked gently: two punch-downs a day before fermentation starts, then a single pump-over a day once it does. Aging is in a mix of new and used barrels, never more than 30 percent new, and deliberately short. The result is pale and lifted, cranberry and sour cherry with rose petal and wet stone, fine-grained tannin, no weight for weight's sake. 2024 was the hardest Burgundy vintage in years, with record spring rain, relentless downy mildew, and poor Pinot Noir flowering that cut Côte de Beaune red yields to 10 to 25 hectoliters per hectare. A brilliant August saved it, and the Côte de Beaune outperformed the Côte de Nuits. Savigny in particular did well.
The People
Bastien Gautheron started his own house in 2020, at an age when most Burgundians are still working for someone else. He began studying oenology at fifteen, went through the Lycée Viticole de Beaune, then spent years at Olivier Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet until 2019. No domaine was waiting for him. A few family vines came free and he took them, describing the moment as now or never. Estate holdings total 0.75 hectares across Savigny-lès-Beaune and the Hautes Côtes de Beaune, farmed organically, and Goudelettes is the only cuvée made entirely from his own fruit; the rest of the range is négociant work. The name honors Anost, the Morvan village his mother's family comes from. His own summary of his approach: a little sulfur at vatting and nothing more until bottling, pragmatic rather than cosmic.
Food Pairing
A cool-site Savigny wants food with more savor than fat. Roast duck breast with cherries or black currants, the fruit echoing the wine directly. Mushroom risotto finished with parmesan, where the wine's earth meets the mushrooms. Coq au vin, the traditional answer and still the right one. Or a plate of charcuterie, rosette and jambon persillé, with a sharp mustard. Serve it at 60 degrees rather than room temperature; it gets clumsy warm. This is the Burgundy for a Wednesday that deserves better than a Wednesday.
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