2023 Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Beaune Blanc

From vines planted in 2019, 2020 and 2021 with high-quality selections of Chardonnay, Dancer's 2023 Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Beaune Blanc delivers aromas of pear, white flowers and fresh mint, followed by a medium to full-bodied, satiny and incisive palate with good texture and cut, concluding with a gently aromatic finish. Théo Dancer bottled all his 2023s in October under Diam 30 (in 2022, everything was bottled under Diam except the Chevalier-Montrachet), since he is beginning construction of a new winery, sacrificing a bit of Chassagne-Montrachet to expand the size of his cellars. It has been several years now since Théo took the reins here, and the evolutions continue. An agroforestry project in the Hautes-Côtes is underway, combining vineyard development with fruit trees and flowering verges. Along the Côte, Dancer is now pruning without a cane and attaching his vines to individual "échalas" stakes, reducing cultivation of the soils to the bare minimum. In the cellar, Théo has banished all new oak (never an important presence, in any case, at this address), instead preferring to purchase used larger-format barrels from another winemaker. The cellar has also been given a thorough cleaning. The 2023s are a strong follow-up to the 2022s, exhibiting good depth and cut, and while Dancer was a little concerned about comparatively high turbidity in some cuvées, given their earlier-than-usual bottling, I didn't see anything to cause concern.