Mid lemon yellow. A little touch of biscuit on the nose, then a broad swathe of white orchard fruit. Combettes likes a year with a bit more water and this shows in the quality of the 2024. Just the right trace of acidity at the back to keep this in balance, while we benefit from the broad brush of the fruit. Drink from 2030-2036. Tasted Oct 2025.

The 2024 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes is lovely, offering up aromas of honeyed orchard fruits, toasted nuts, white flowers and deftly judged reduction, followed by a full-bodied, ample and satiny palate with exceptional volume and density for the vintage, concluding with a long and expansive finish. Benoît Riffault presides over this 15-hectare Pulingy-Montrachet reference point, and his 2024s have turned out very nicely. Opting not to chaptalize, with the exception of the Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune, the wines are pure and precise, with increasing texture and density as one ascends the appellation hierarchy. But what are the rudiments of winemaking at this address today? Hand-harvested fruit is pressed without crushing, the press cycle lasting around three and a half hours and performing "quite a few" rotations to crumble the marc. The must is sulfited at the end of the press and settled for 24 hours, but Riffault retains most of the lees, fermenting in wood with ambient yeasts. Larger formats, including foudres, now complement 228-liter Burgundian barrels. The wines are racked to tank in July-August before the new vintage, whereas the premiers and grands crus spend as much as six months on their lees before bottling. All of Sauzet's wines are bottled with high-quality unbleached natural cork.(WK)

Filigreed and taut, this more dynamic cuvée is quite closed at the moment, as it tends to be. There is notable muscle and intensity, currently hibernating on the palate. It simply needs its second winter in barrel and some additional time in bottle to fully reveal itself. Notes of Buddha’s hand, golden gooseberry, and ginger linger on the finish.