Vincent Girardin -Chassagne Montrachet 1 er Cru Les Blanchots 2019/2021

Vincent Girardin Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru "Blanchot-Dessus" 2021 is a very high-quality white from the Côte de Beaune sub-region of Burgundy, France. Made from 100% Chardonnay, this Premier Cru is widely praised by critics for its exceptional balance, from a vineyard right next to the iconic Grand Cru Le Montrachet.

The Wine Advocate
RP 94

Critic: William Kelley

The 2021 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Blanchots Dessus benefited from intensive frost protection, a decision that clearly paid off. In the glass it shows aromas of ripe orchard fruit, pear, buttery pastry, white flowers, iodine and almonds. On the palate it's full-bodied, silky and layered, with a deep core of fruit, vibrant acidity and a long, electric, high-energy finish.

Reputations, once formed, are hard to change, and one of my recurring professional challenges is precisely trying to change them. Time passes, people change and approaches evolve, but stereotypes persist. So I can do little more than repeat that the wines now made under the Vincent Girardin name are excellent, and that I'm happy to keep some of them in my own cellar.

Readers will remember the story: Vincent Girardin started as a grower in 1982 and in 1990 created his own négociant house, based on the family estates. He stood out early on for insisting on buying grapes rather than must or finished wine. As Girardin's holdings grew and became too demanding to manage, Eric Germain — brother of Jean-François Germain, who runs the renowned Domaine Henri Germain in Meursault — was brought in in 2002 to oversee production.

Germain, as he says himself, aimed “to make not just good wines, but great wines”, and wines able to age. Under his leadership, winemaking practices were profoundly transformed, an evolution that has continued since the house was acquired by the Compagnie des Vins d’Autrefois in 2011.

Wines that were once overly oaky and somewhat overdone are now tauter, more precise and beautifully differentiated by their terroir of origin. There's also much more attention to vineyard work — they now own 21 hectares — areas that are progressively being converted to biodynamic farming.

Ageing is now longer, while Germain uses much less new oak and little bâtonnage. He has also stopped racking the wines out of new barrels, believing this approach helps them integrate over time.

So Vincent Girardin is today a very serious source of high-quality white Burgundy, and the reflex of dismissing the producer as simply “commercial” is completely misplaced.

Success in a vintage like 2020 could be put down to the year, but a high-level performance in 2021 is much harder to dispute — and that's exactly what Germain achieved. Harvest began on 18 September and ran to the end of the month, aiming for full ripeness. The portfolio includes some truly remarkable cuvées this vintage.

The decision to protect the vines against frost also proved right, as it was precisely these cuvées that clearly overcame the limitations of the vintage.

Published: 18 January 2024