Pouilly Fuissé Croux et Petits Croux, Domaine Guffens-Heynen 2023

From barrel, I wondered whether the 2023 Pouilly-Fuissé Croux et Petits Croux could rival the extraordinary 2020 rendition of this cuvée (a wine that remains one of the most thrilling young white Burgundies I have tasted over the last 15 years). In bottle, it's clear that it can. If the 2020 is almost neoclassical in its harmony and structure, the 2023 is more flamboyant and demonstrative, bursting with notes of crisp orchard fruit, honeyed pear, white flowers, mandarin oil and licorice root. On the palate, it's full-bodied, dense and multidimensional, with palate-staining levels of concentration, immense reserves of chalky structuring extract and a long, resonant finish. Anyone with the opportunity to compare and contrast the two vintages with a decade or more of bottle age (which Les Croux really requires) is in for one of the tastings of a lifetime!

Jean-Marie believes that the 2023 version of this cuvée is all set to match the quality of the already legendary 2020 vintage. Total production is 5 barrels (3 new, 2 year old). A high level of bourbe (juice with lots of suspended solids) gives the nose a Coche-like reduction in this early stage. Underneath, the nose is powerful with sweet, embryonic fruit - peaches, confit lemons, candied citrus peel and a hint of passion fruit. The palate is a marvel, managing to be full-bodied and rich yet feel weightless and ethereal. Struck flint, lemon drizzle, roasted peach, wave upon wave of spice and a tangy acidity that courses through the fruit core. The spiciness builds on the back end, keeping you engaged as this wine weaves between sweet and savoury, ripeness and freshness, chalkiness and silk. The finish is minutes long and kaleidoscopic in flavour. An incredible wine, one that may well warrant a three-digit score from bottle.

Could the 2023 Pouilly-Fuissé Croux et Petits Croux rival the profound 2020? I tend to think that it will. Unwinding in the glass with youthfully reductive aromas of pear, waxy citrus fruit, toasted nuts and iodine, this full-bodied, deep and immensely concentrated white Burgundy is layered and muscular, with the huge reserves of structuring dry extract that are such a signature of this site, underpinned by racy acids and concluding with a long, resonant, mouthwateringly saline finish. I suspect it will be somewhat more forward than the 2020, but this remains a bottling very much built for the cellar.