The 2021 Pommard 1er Cru les Rugiens is very well balanced with a fleshy, silky-textured opening. The stem addition is just right—lending freshness and yet never dominating the flavors, while the finish is very focused with a tang of cherry on the aftertaste that urges you to return and take another sip. Excellent. This is a Pommard that should mature well over the next decade and drink over two.

Thierry Glantenay has taken over at his family domaine and is now producing exquisite, ethereal Volnay from it’s best terroirs and full, powerful Pommard from it’s best terroirs, in fact the Glantenay’s posses most of the great red terroirs from the Côte de Beaune.

They prune hard to take 35 to 40hl/ha at most, and the low yield combined with vine age gives Volnay wines with extra depth and Pommards with extra dimension to join the structure. Thierry works in lutte raisonnee, i.e. sustainable agriculture. The grapes are hand picked, undergo natural fermentation, either de-stemmed or with whole clusters in some wines, and a little pigeage at the start, and no pumping.

Thierry is a meticulous and talented winemaker who uses no more than twenty five percent new oak for any of his wines, allowing for a beautiful synthesis of pure fruit, delicate framing and a beautifully transcribed expression of terroir in each and every wine. There is a refined elegance and perfumed precision to the Glantenay wines which, to me, are amongst the most exciting to taste in the Cote d'Or.

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