2023 Domaine Ballot-Millot

Domaine Ballot-Millot is one of our favourite addresses for classic, age-worthy white Burgundy. “Serious wines… that deserve to be better known” is how The Wine Advocate’s William Kelley has described the wines. The 2023s are very good indeed, showing particular elegance and precision.

Charles Ballot is the sixteenth generation of the family to run the domaine. He favours a gentle pressing for the whites, followed by a short settling, before fermentation in barrel using indigenous yeast. For maturation, use of new oak is restrained: the village wines see around 15% new oak, and the premier crus, 25%. The wines are aged for one year in barrel, with a further few months in tank before bottling.

2023 was a warm and bountiful year in Burgundy. For those who took measures to control yields and timed their harvest appropriately, it was also one of high calibre. The wines are open and juicy, with attractive freshness and no shortage of concentration.

Jasper Morris praises the 2023 whites in particular, declaring that “in some cellars this clearly really is a great vintage”. “I am hard pushed to think of another vintage so pleasurable from barrel”, says Neal Martin, with similar enthusiasm.

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