PAULINE PASSOT IS THE NEXT GREAT THING AND HER WINES FROM HER FAMILY WINERY CALLED DOMAINE DE LA GROSSE PIERRE FROM CHIROUBLES IN BEAUJOLAIS ARE NOTHING SHORT OF SENSATIONAL.
There is SO much here to get excited about here, young winemaker making extremely expressive traditional and representative wines, in tiny amounts, from old vine Cru vineyards, using classic whole-cluster open carbonic fermentation, aging in concrete (the Grille in demi-muids), no filtering, and little or no sulfites at bottling. Her first act after taking the reins to several familial holdings and leased sites was to begin to convert to organic farming. She is making some of the most beautifully crafted and natural Gamay-based wines in all of Burgundy. They are a STEAL for the price, will be IMPOSSIBLE to get in the future and will certainly be more expensive. 2019 is only her third vintage. I am as excited about the uniqueness and discovery of these wines as we were about Herri Mina, ALIT, Pierre Cotton, Stella di Campalto and Patrick Piuze.
The backstory is famous American importer Peter Weygandt discovered Pauline while at a Beaujolais tasting in France. She was pouring her husband's wines and mentioned to Peter that she had started making her own wines at her family's estate and Peter asked to try them. Peter was blown away with the wines and the rest is recent history. The wines are extremely representative of the Cru's from which they derive, very Burgundian and feminine in style, with beauty, power, and tension.
PAULINE PASSOT
Pauline Passot comes from a winemaking lineage. The Passot family have been growers in Chiroubles for decades and the Domaine was founded in the 1960's by her grandfather. Pauline spent time working in wine in Dublin and then later became sommelier at the Michelin starred restaurant Pierre Orsi in Lyon. It was here that she realized, in relation to more famous wines, there was much to be proud of in the potential of Chiroubles, and that she needed to make these wines. She headed home and began this journey.
Pauline's wines have been trumpeted by Jancis Robinson, Eric Asimov and are starting to crack all of the global best value lists. The noise is growing. LISTEN UP!!
