Domaine Jerome Fornerot Bourgogne Rouge 2022

The 2022 Bourgogne Rouge is crunchy and fresh, with just pristine and delicious fruit from the moment you open the bottle. It is pure Pinot pleasure, high-toned and fine, and before the rest of the world discovers the amazing wines of Jérôme Fornerot, you can pick up some of the best under-$30 red Burgundies we’ve offered all year.

Located in Saint-Aubin, Fornerot, a second-generation vigneron, historically sold much of his fruit to the negoce. His old vine holdings in some of St Aubin, Santenay, and Maranges’ top sites guaranteed high prices, and for an up-and-comer who had been building his estate in real time over the last 20 years, quick cash in hand was significant.

So, as I walked into our meeting last June knowing the quality of his holdings, my expectations for the wines were sky-high. On that point, all expectations were exceeded. It’s a flat-out delicious vintage, and Jérôme’s wines did all the talking. But how many bottles I could actually bring back to the States for Nicholas Wines?

Let’s just say I would have been happy with a few cases of wine for the restaurant and my cellar. Turns out my timing was just right, as was my pitch arguing that a small release of Bourgogne Rouge was the perfect wine to start building the brand in the US. For the very first time, we have 10 cases of prime, old-vine Pinot from the stony sites on the cold side of Santenay.