2023 Santenay Maladiere

The 2023 Santenay Maladière 1er Cru, which comes from younger vines and was picked quite early, is quite high-toned on the nose with just a touch of alcoholic warmth that blurs its edges. The palate is well balanced with better acidity than the Clos Faubaud or Clos de Malte, and a touch of lemongrass intermixed with tropical fruit toward the finish. This is the best of the three white Santenay wines. As tradition dictates, I undertook a comprehensive tasting of around 100 wines from Louis Jadot at the winery in Beaune, divided into two sessions for the white and red. Readers should note that I interviewed head winemaker Frédéric Barnier. "The wines are 0.5% higher in alcohol in 2023 than 2022, but with exactly the same level of acidity," he adds, after I had filmed the video. "Everything from our own vineyards was around 13.5% while some fruit that we bought was over 14%. Many of the vines resisted excessive sugar accumulation. We introduced foudres so there is less oxygen whilst using the same level of SO2. The challenge was the purity of both the reds and the whites. The fermentation was not so easy for the latter, and we stopped the malolactic a little earlier. There is 0.8gm/L malic acid on 2022 and 1.1gm/L in 2023. There is 0.5% more alcohol but with the same acidity as the 2022."