Domaine Etienne Sauzet Bourgogne Blanc 2018

My time at Jean-Georges opened my eyes to world of fine dining. The economy was flying and there was no place in the city where the truly epic, standard-bearing wines of the world flew off the list with more regularity. Harlan, DRC, Chateau Latour and Dom Perignon might as well have been Tuesday nighters at Jean Georges in that era. For white Burgundy, and specifically, Puligny Montrachet, nothing sold quite like Etienne Sauzet.

25 years later, not much has changed in terms of the demand on Etienne Sauzet. The Big Man has it exactly right, Sauzet creates benchmark wines not only for Puligny Montrachet but for all of Burgundy. Current winemaker, Emilie Boillot, Etienne’s great grand-daughter, has amazingly raised the bar, farming biodynamically, reducing yields, and employing a more rigorous selection of grapes. The resulting wines are nothing short of fantastic and the new releases from Burgundy’s fantastic 2018 are out of this world.

The Bourgogne blanc gives drinkers the opportunity to have the fruit of Burgundy’s all-time great white producers labor at a rare under $50 price tag. And as many of you probably could have guessed, this bottle is probably the best of all the Bourgogne Blancs and really gives wines twice and three times the price a run for its money.