Jean-Marc Millot Cote de Nuits Villages Aux Faulques 2021

Aux Faulques is one of the great quiet bargains of the Côte de Nuits — a wine that consistently punches well above its village classification, and a longtime favourite of those who follow Domaine Jean-Marc Millot closely. The vineyard is located in Comblanchien, just south of Premeaux and south of Nuits-Saint-Georges, where the appellation begins just south of Clos de la Maréchale — a small, lesser-known terroir that few outside the Millot circle have explored in any depth. The 1.8-hectare plot sits in the heart of the Comblanchien appellation, with production limited to around 7,000 bottles a year — old vines that Alix Millot tends with the same meticulous, terroir-respecting philosophy applied across the rest of the domaine, kept cool and transparent in style rather than pushed toward weight or extraction. 

A lovely and juicy wine with plenty of energy and a very interesting expression of terroir for this level — the nose offering lovely sweet red fruits combined with a hint of pomegranate and red currant, the minerality playful and quite refined; on the palate quite generous, with fine acidity and lovely fresh, juicy mid-palate fruit ending on a long and energetic finish. From very old vines, with nice ripeness kept in balance by a narrow margin — fine drinkability, balance and energy, quite intense yet retaining a cool, fresh character. A big and burly wine in riper vintages — rich and offering a lot of wine at this level, the terroir in Comblanchien proving genuinely interesting, with a fine complexity not often found in Côte de Nuits-Villages. This is one of Burgundy's better-kept secrets — a village wine with real depth, sourced from a corner of the Côte de Nuits that almost nobody else is bottling on its own.