Burgundy, France

The confurons have been vignerons since the 17th century during the reign of Louis XIV. Their specialty was, and continues to be, vine selection and propagation. Along with their villages-level wines in Nuit-Saint-Georges, Vosne-Romanee, Echezeaux, Closs Vougeot and tiny plots of Charmes Chambertin & Mazis Chambertin.

The Confurons have always used whole-bunch fermentation, picking very late, which really is a necessity if the stems are to be properly ripe and not give green flavours to the wine. A bit like the Thévenets with their whites in the Mâconnais, they pick so much later that they can seem to have different vintages to everyone else. Yves thinks that 2007 was their great vintage of the first decade of this millennium, and he'd probably be the only grower in the Côte de Nuits who would say that. Yves also makes the wines at Domaine de Courcelin Pommard, in the same way.

The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered, and they show remarkable aromatic intensity, spice, purity of fruit, and striking minerality from their fantastic terroirs.

Yves, opinionated and laconical as ever, dismisses those who make pale wines by 'infusion' and says that failing to get the whole bunches properly ripe - and using all the bunch - is failing to get everything the terroir can offer. The wines he makes are dark, richly concentrated, and often hard to taste in their development, but experience shows that they age brilliantly.

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