Domaine Guilbert Gillet Savigny-Lès-Beaune Les Planchots du Nord 2023 750ml

A 0.22-hectare strip of marl beside the winery, bought before anything else, and the only vineyard Benjamin Guilbert owned when his first wines appeared.

Les Planchots du Nord lies on the south-east side of Savigny-lès-Beaune by the river Rhoin, a short walk from the cellar. The Japanese importer Finesse lists it as 0.22 hectares of Pinot Noir on marl, planted in 1976, the first parcel the domaine acquired; the debut 2020 vintage yielded 580 bottles, and in those early releases it was the sole estate-owned red. When the Shizuoka merchant Matsukiya visited in May 2026, Guilbert noted that the plot had been treated as a premier cru in the 1920s and 1930s and has been bottled on its own in every vintage since the domaine began.

His own reading of 2023, passed on by Matsukiya, is of a warm year with a very hot summer, so concentrated that some vines carried only four or five bunches, the acidity a touch softer and the alcohol higher than in 2022. He kept new oak out as far as he could so the tannins would stay fine and the acidity would carry the wine, and sets 2023 as the approachable vintage against the long-haul 2022. The label states 13.5 percent and vin non filtré, and the bottle is numbered. Matsukiya reports that part of the 2023 is being held back to release alongside the small 2024, when rain and mildew cost the reds roughly seventy percent of production.

Guilbert, once a buyer for the Paris merchant Legrand, told a former colleague writing for Fujingaho in 2024 that he and his wife Caroline do nearly everything themselves, racking, bottling, labels and wax, in a half-underground cellar without air conditioning so the wine can feel the seasons. A grower's job, he said, is just to let the grapes become what they want to be. In practice that means complete destemming, used barrels from a single domaine, eighteen months without racking, and bottling by hand from the cask.

In the glass

Finesse describes the parcel's wine as pale yet full of red-fruit aroma, with a powerful frame and the depth to age. Tasting the 2023 in summer 2024, the Legrand columnist in Fujingaho found a glossy bright ruby, framboise, raspberry, grenadine and violet, a light tone over a dense texture, silky tannin, a long line of acidity, savoury depth and a lasting finish.

When to open

Guilbert prefers not to decant his reds, a cellar visitor reported in November 2025, and calls 2023 his accessible vintage. Our suggestion: open from now, or hold until the early 2030s.

At the table

Our suggestion: roast duck breast, pigeon with cherries, or a slice of Cîteaux cheese.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from the Japanese importer.

Sources: Domaine Guilbert-Gillet (label); Finesse (Japanese importer); Fujingaho (Legrand column, Sept 2024); WINE CELLAR Matsukiya; WineBerserkers (Nov 2025); Clos Cachet; TH Wine Shop