2023 Domaine Jean-Marc Bouley Pommard

The 2023 Pommard Village opens in the glass with notes of cherries, berries, licorice and petals. Medium- to full-bodied, taut and sapid, reflecting its origins in the cool, northeasterly exposures of the windy lieu-dit of Valmuriens, it exhibits less mid-palate volume than the communal bottlings from Volnay. Walk through the vineyards of the Côte de Beaune, and Thomas Bouley’s eight hectares of vines are easy to spot. Their unusually high, evenly spaced canopies are hedged high and late (after bunch closure), casting dappled shade over supple, aerated soils that are often covered with a delicate carpet of grass and weeds. At harvest, his yields are moderate, and clusters are invariably open and healthy. Vineyards don’t look like this by accident, and it’s both Bouley’s results and the indefatigable work ethic that lies behind them that have won him the near-universal admiration of other growers along the Côte d’Or.(WK)