($40): Louis Baisinbert is a name to watch.  He is a small négociant — some would call him a “micro-negociant” — buying no more than a half dozen barrels of an individual wine from a single producer.  He supplies the barrels, never new oak, and performs the elevage, which is literally raising  (finishing) the wine.  He never blends wine from different producers and always searches for wines from vines that are more than 30 years old, because the grapes from those vines produce the most complex wines.  He grew up in Burgundy, which gives him an edge on finding the wines, because, as he says with a smile, “If you know nobody in Burgundy it’s over.  The big deal is to find the right wine and age it well.”  He’s done that with this white Montagny Premier Cru, which develops a captivating combination of a creamy stoniness and enlivening acidity.  Fresh and rich simultaneously, it shows that excellent wine is available in less prestigious parts of Burgundy, such as Montagny, as long as you know where to look.
91 Michael Apstein Jan 5, 2016