Vinified and bottled without sulfur, Valette's 2015 Macon-Chaintré Vieilles Vignes responds well to oxygen—in fact, it's best decanted—and the more air it sees, the less wild it seems. Opening in the glass with aromas of buttered orchard fruit, orange rind, smoke and nutmeg, the wine is medium to full-bodied, satiny-textured and muscular, with lively acids, chewy structuring extract and a long, sapid finish. This is an intensely characterful Macon-Chaintré that exemplifies the last two decades of reflection and evolution chez Valette. Any readers who find parallels with the wines of Jean-Fran?ois Ganevat will be interested to know that Valette told me that the two producers are working with fruit that grows in the same strata of Jurassic limestone—though there are clearly technical and philosophical parallels too.

The 2004 Macon-Chaintre displays aromas of fresh minerals and ripe apples. Its medium-bodied personality is satin-textured, expressive, and boasts loads of white fruit flavors. Drink it between 2007 and 2011. Visiting the Valette family, whose home/estate is perched on Chaintre’s hillside affording views of the Saone valley (all the way to the Alps), is always a fascinating adventure. Ever since the family patriarch, Gerard Valette, left the local coop, he and his family have been fiercely independent, bucking both viticultural and winemaking traditions. For example, when all their neighbors had finished harvesting the 2003s, the Valettes were waiting for the fruit to be ripe, and when all their neighbors had bottled and shipped their 2004s, the Valettes’ were still undergoing elevage. Sadly, this outstanding, iconoclastic estate, whose offerings grace the finest restaurant wine lists in France, is no longer imported into the United States.No American importer.

Though I felt the “Jeunes Vignes” cuvee was marred by high alcohol, the regular bottling of the 2003 Macon-Chaintre is outstanding. It explodes from the glass with spiced pears that lead to taster to a fresh, medium-bodied personality. This concentrated effort is awash in white fruits that linger throughout its long. seamless finish. Drink it over the next 3-4 years. Visiting the Valette family, whose home/estate is perched on Chaintre’s hillside affording views of the Saone valley (all the way to the Alps), is always a fascinating adventure. Ever since the family patriarch, Gerard Valette, left the local coop, he and his family have been fiercely independent, bucking both viticultural and winemaking traditions. For example, when all their neighbors had finished harvesting the 2003s, the Valettes were waiting for the fruit to be ripe, and when all their neighbors had bottled and shipped their 2004s, the Valettes’ were still undergoing elevage. Sadly, this outstanding, iconoclastic estate, whose offerings grace the finest restaurant wine lists in France, is no longer imported into the United States.No American importer.

The 2002 Macon-Chaintre Vieilles Vignes has a smoky, stone-filled nose. Velvety-textured, fresh, and displaying apple as well as pear flavors, it is a light to medium-bodied wine. Projected maturity: now-2008. French wine lovers are well aware that 2002 was a particularly difficult vintage in the south of France due to incessant rains, culminating in massive deluges at harvest time, yet to the north, in the Cote d’Or, there were almost drought-like conditions for most of the growing season, with the exception of a rainy period in late August/early September. What appears to be little-known, however, is that the demarcation line between the dry north and the wet south bisected the Maconnais. As Gerard Valette noted, “To make good wines, we needed to do a severe sort at harvest because we had gotten our fair share of the rains of the south, and therefore needed to cope with some rot.”Importer: Kysela Pere et Fils, Fran Kysela, Winchester, VA; tel. (540) 722-9228