The delicious 2023 Butteaux from Raveneau boasts pronounced aromas of grapefruit and gooseberry, underpinned with salty minerality. The texture is more linear, as the crisp acidity brings a bit more tension, but there is also more extract here. The domaine owns two parcels that total 1.5ha in this lieu-dit (part of the larger Montmains umbrella on the left bank of the Serein). As Isabelle Raveneau describes it, the vines are planted in shallow soils at the top of the slope in the windiest location, driving the tension in this delightful wine.(CC)

The 2023 Butteaux here was more reserved in personality than any other of the premier crus up until this point, which is certainly not out of character for this cuvée, but which I still take as a good sign for its potential longevity in bottle. The bouquet is bright and nascently complex, offering up a fine blend of pear, apple, a gorgeous foundation of chalky soil tones, beeswax, vanillin oak and a floral topnote of apple blossoms. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and quite racy in profile for this vintage, with an excellent core of fruit, fine mineral drive and grip, impeccable balance and a very long, racy and promising finish. This is going to be an outstanding wine, but it will need a handful of years in the cellar before it starts to drink with generosity. (Drink between 2030-2065)

Understated yet regal, this is a reserved wine that certainly reflects its windy, hill-top site— despite the hot vintage. Candle wax, rising yeast rolls, ginger paste and fennel give this a savory bent. Reverberating concentration combines with feline grace to assure a long life expectancy. Lemon peels and chalk surface on the super-charged finish.