A treasure from the 4,000 case production of Domaine Valette is the 1994 Pouilly-Fuisse Clos Reyssie Reserve Particuliere. Only 160 cases are made each year, of which 60 are sold to the United States. Think of this wine as the Montrachet of Maconnais. The wine offers a formidable display of power and richness crammed together in a remarkably balanced format. It possesses $60-100 worth of flavor. While it displays the large-scaled richness of the other wines, it retains a sense of elegance and more of the stony, liquid mineral character that tasters notice in a Montrachet or Meursault-Perrieres. This is a fabulous example of white Burgundy that should age well for a decade.
Given Domaine Valette's performance in both 1993 and 1994, they are a definite candidate for one of my wine producers of the year - and I haven't even tasted the 1995s, which should be even better based on the vintage's raw materials. Can you imagine that?
As I have said so many times in the past, the most exciting things happening in Burgundy are not in Chablis or the Cote d'Or, but rather in the vast area north of Lyon called the Maconnais. Although I am unimpressed with the overall quality of this area's small production of red wines, the white wine offerings from the top dozen or so estates continue to exhibit eye-opening quality. I have written about this estate in the past, and these exquisite new releases clearly put Domaine Valette in the Macon/Pouilly-Fuisse superstar category, along with such estates as Domaine de la Bongran, Chateau Fuisse, Olivier Merlin, J.C. Thevenet, Guffens-Heynen, and Domaine J.A. Ferret. It would be easy to mistake these amazing wines as top premiers or grands crus from the Cote d'Or. Readers lucky enough to find and purchase these wines should insert them in a tasting of grand cru white Burgundies - they are that amazing!
Kysela Pere et Fils, 130 Windy Hill Lane, Suite W5-12/12A, Winchester, VA 22602; telephone (540) 722-9228 and fax (540) 722-9258
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