A prodigious wine, the 2020 Macon-Pierreclos Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne is the latest rendition of a cuvée based on juice from a parcel of almost 20-year-old vines named "Juliette" (a former aviator, inter alia, Guffens enumerates his various parcels in lieu-dit Chavigne using the phonetic alphabet). Stunted in the 2003 heatwave, it thus produced immensely concentrated fruit and was blended with juice from old vines in neighboring parcels. Wafting from the glass with aromas of pear, citrus zest, mirabelle plum, mint, almond paste, freshly baked bread and iodine, it's full-bodied, satiny and seamless, with a deep, multi-dimensional core, racy acids and a long, resonant finish. Given its huge reserves of structure and concentration, it will likely shut down after bottling, much as previous iterations have tended to do, only to reemerge slowly in five or six years' time. But make no mistake, it is a remarkable bottle of white Burgundy.

The 2018 Macon-Pierreclos Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne is tightly wound and introverted, but its incredible tension and palate presence is impossible to miss. Unfurling in the glass with notes of crisp yellow orchard fruit, orange oil, nutmeg, fresh pastry and pears, it's full-bodied, deep and immensely incisive, with huge concentration and structuring dry extract, girdled by racy acids. Long and penetrating, this is one of the wines of the vintage in the Maconnais. As readers will remember from the inaugural 2016 rendition, this cuvée hails from a parcel of vines ("Juliette") that were stunted by the 2003 heat wave and which have always produced tiny yields. The more generous yields of 2018 gave Guffens sufficient volume to fulfill a long-standing ambition to vinify them separately, and to this, Guffens added the fruit from his 1.05 hectares of old vines in Macon-Pierreclos, which yielded a mere 37 hectoliters. The resulting wine was fermented and matured in barrels, 50% of which were new.

The 2016 Macon-Pierreclos Juliette et les Vieilles de Chavigne hails from a parcel of vines ("Juliette") that were stunted by the 2003 heatwave and which have always produced tiny yields: the more generous crop of 2016 gave Guffens sufficient volume to fulfill a long-standing ambition to vinify them separately; but the resulting juice was so intensely concentrated that he added some old-vine fruit from Chavigne ("les Vieilles"). The wine is quite extraordinary—and likely to number among the domaine's greatest hits over the years—wafting from the glass with aromas of Anjou pear, ripe citrus fruit, dried white flowers and crushed chalk. On the palate, it's full-bodied, powerful and enveloping, with a broad, expansive and multidimensional attack that's supported by an incredibly incisive, racy line of acids, concluding with an electric, tongue-tingling finish. It's a stunning wine that entirely subverts preconceived appellation hierarchies, and readers should make every effort to secure a few bottles.