Les Petits Lieux Bourgogne Aligoté 2023 750ml

Henri Jayer's cellar in Vosne-Romanée sat idle for the best part of twenty years; the first wine to leave it again was not Pinot Noir but 5,590 bottles of Aligoté.

Les Petits Lieux is the négociant label that Guillaume Rouget and his wife, the oenologist Laure Guilloteau, launched with the 2023 vintage after buying the house and winery where Guillaume's great-uncle Henri Jayer made his wines. Guillaume still makes the wine at Domaine Emmanuel Rouget, his father's estate; Laure arrived from Jean-Claude Boisset, where she had been Grégory Patriat's right hand. Jayer's tanks and tools stayed in service, and the name comes from his own line about Burgundy's climats, printed on the back label: the winemaker must be modest, or better, humble, in the face of so much richness concentrated in such a small place. Laure put it more simply to Christy Canterbury MW: "We even have Henri's wine glasses."

The 2023 Aligoté was made from bought grapes on clay-limestone soils, roughly three quarters from Meursault and from Remigny just south of Santenay, the rest from the Côte Chalonnaise, according to the importer material quoted by Japanese retailers. Harvest was by hand. Fermentation ran cool, in tank and in 350-litre casks, and the wine then spent a year in used Burgundian pièces, some of them barrels that had already served at Emmanuel Rouget, with no new oak. That is the point of difference from the Rouget Aligoté, which sees only stainless steel: the couple told Wine-Searcher they would keep all their whites in barrel and give them longer than the domaine does. Both are members of Les Aligoteurs, the growers' group campaigning for the grape, and they have applied to plant Aligoté in an old family garden in Vosne.

In the glass

Le Carré des Vins finds candied citron and kumquat, acacia and white pepper, chalky notes and sweet almond, with a vertical palate, biting acidity and a finish that returns to spice and citrus. Steen Öhman (Winehog, tasted 5 March 2025) called it fresh and vivid, slightly on the delicate and perfumed side, with the phenolics well judged, and gave it 88 points. The importer's note reads the barrel work as softening the grape's usual edge: a sweet, fresh nose, full fruit and round, gentle acidity.

When to open

Winehog says drink from 2025; Le Carré des Vins puts the peak at 2026 to 2027 and the window through 2028, served at 11°C.

At the table

Our suggestion: oysters or raw scallop, gougères, chicken in a cream sauce, or the kir that Burgundians traditionally built on this grape.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from the Japanese importer.

Sources: Les Petits Lieux (label); Le Carré des Vins; Wine Holic and Matsukiya (Japanese retailers quoting importer material); Winehog (S. Öhman); Wine-Searcher (C. Canterbury MW)