Alvina Pernot - Chevalier Montrachet 2020

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Bill Nanson (Burgundy Report): "A more top-end loaded nose – but fine purity. A little reduction again but so well done. Ultra mineral but never with too much rigour, slowly mouthwatering, very faintly tannic – excellent Chevalier, grand white burgundy. (12/23/21)"

Alvina Pernot Description

When it comes to the wines of Puligny-Montrachet, the name that keeps coming up again and again is that of Paul Pernot, one of the village’s top growers and one of its most esteemed winemakers. Most of the vines on their estate were planted by Paul, grandfather to the current generation, in the late 1950s and 1960s. And the winery was among the first in Burgundy to adopt organic and sustainable farming practices, including the elimination of herbicides.

But it’s the genetic legacy of the vines, as Michel Pernot, the current winemaker, likes to point out, that make these wines so distinctive and collectible. There were no “clones” back when Paul was planting. And all the current plants are the result of massal selection (whereby the best plants are grafted onto new plants) carried out by the last two generations of the Pernot family.

To this day, roughly 80 percent of their fruit is sold to négociants and only the best grapes are used to make wines with the Paul Pernot label.

Alvina Pernot started her own label in 2018. She uses mostly fruit grown by her family in their historic, celebrated parcels. But she has also begun to purchase her own vineyards as her wines continue to wow critics and Burgundy collectors.

Where Paul Pernot remains a classic expression of white Burgundy, Alvina, one of Paul’s grandchildren, makes wines with a more contemporary style, farming at higher altitudes and picking earlier than most. The resulting wines are bright and vibrant in the glass with, as many critics note, wonderful approachability in their youth.

It’s the best of both worlds and you really can’t go wrong.

Inside Burgundy: 95 Points

"One barrel, in exchange. A touch of sulphur is slightly blocking the nose. It is hard to get past it for the moment, but the wine in the mouth is quite impressive. Finishes on the saline after a wealth of very pure white fruit, more hillside in style but with enough flesh beneath. Pulls out to a long fine finish. The bouquet will surely follow, because the rest is fine. Tasted: October 2021." Jasper Morris, Burgundy Insider

Vinous: 93 Points

"The 2020 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru comes from an exchange of must with another producer (10 barrels of Puligny Village for one of these if you are interested in the going rate!) Matured in this one-year old barrel, it has a complex bouquet with scents of Golden Delicious, sea spray and a touch of petrichor. The palate is well balanced with fine depth, smooth in texture, maybe richer than the best of Pernot’s Puligny Premier Crus but maybe without quite the same precision and mineralité." Neal Martin, Vinous Media

Wine Advocate: 93 Points

"Pernot's debut 2020 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru unwinds in the glass with notions of citrus oil, white flowers, fresh bread, wet stones and nutmeg. Full-bodied, ample and satiny, it's a layered, mineral, wine that's fine-boned but intense, concluding with a long, saline finish." William Kelley, Robert Parker Wine Advocate