2014 Domaine Talmard Macon Uchizy

Burgundy’s Seventeen Dollar “Great White”

We first tasted Paul Talmard’s Mâcon-Uchizy in the early 1980s. About once every three years, we returned to Uchizy to taste with Talmard. Paul was always perfectly charming, but you could tell he far preferred life in the vines to the cellar. The Talmard Mâcons were painstakingly chiseled, seemingly kissed with sweetness — even if each vintage was bone-dry.

Despite a price tag of less than $8/bottle (those were the days!), we bought Paul Talmard’s Chardonnay by the case, drinking a few bottles in the months following release. The rest we laid down for up to a decade, waiting for the bitter honey and beeswax to steal center stage.

Over the last decade, we’d pretty much lost touch with the Talmard estate. Paul had retired. His daughter Mallory and her husband Benjamin had assumed control. Based on all we’d heard from other vignerons in the Mâconais, the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Quality had apparently improved, largely due to a significant investment in a new state-of-the art cellar. As Mallory insisted on increasing prices gingerly, sales had gone through the roof. Little of what many in the region believe to be white Burgundy’s most compelling bargain made it stateside. That which did was allocated well before bottling.

When we last returned to Uchizy, Gilles Corsin, our winemaker friend in Davayé, suggested that Mallory’s relationship with her American importer “had become strained.” In Burgundy-speak, that means growers aren’t getting paid! As we pulled into the familiar driveway where we’d spent so many summer afternoons with her father, Mallory Talmard and her husband Benjamin greeted us warmly. Then they treated us to a Mâcon-Uchizy tasting that began in 2012 and ended with Mallory’s dad’s unforgettable 1985.

The just-released 2014 Mallory & Benjamin Talmard Mâcon-Uchizy speaks to both the past and the present. The vines are worked with the same rigor that so distinguished Paul Talmard’s estate in the mid-1980s. But Benjamin pushes the envelope on maturity, and harvests a bit riper than Paul ever did, making for an absolutely luscious white Burgundy that’s still braced with great vibrancy and crispness.

The 2014 Mâcon-Uchizy is brilliant pale-gold to the rim. Enticing aromas of ripe apple, pear, and orange pith. Ripe, plush, and supple on the attack, kissed with sweetness — though the Chardonnay is perfectly dry —filled with a weighty mix of apple, honey, and quince, finishing with superb length and persistence. Drink now-2022.

Is there a better $17 bottle of white Burgundy? If you think so, give us a call. We’ll be right over. 1200 bottles are up for grabs.

• ABV 13.00%
• Enjoy right away
• % Chardonnay