Aromas of fresh citrus zest, pear and peach mingle with notes of white flowers and toasted nuts, introducing Sauzet's 2024 Puligny-Montrachet Village, a medium- to full-bodied, ample and satiny white with a bright spine of acidity and an elegantly mordant finish. It's a blend of seven lieux-dits dotted around the appellation, with Benoit Riffault expressing a preference for Les Levrons, below les Réferts, as his favorite. 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)

The 2024 Puligny-Montrachet Villages comes from the usual 12 parcels around the appellation. There is a pleasant strictness on the petrichor-tinged bouquet, with underlying vanilla pod scents just loitering in the background. The palate is weighty and textural with fine acidity, quite pithy compared to previous vintages, although it does not quite kick on at the finish. But it remains a decent Puligny Village that will drink well for several years.(NM)