Alvina Pernot - Corton Charlemagne 2020

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.

"Notes of citrus oil, freshly baked bread, crisp Anjou pear, white flowers and orange oil introduce the 2020 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, a medium to full-bodied, textural and incisive wine with a fleshy mid-palate allied with promising cut and grip. It's a fine success." William Kelley, Robert Parker Wine Advocate

"One barrel, in exchange. Paler colour even with a light green tint. Stones to the fore rather than flesh, but there is enough of the latter. Some citrus astringency behind, not a problem, and good persistence. Tasted: October 2021." Jasper Morris, Burgundy Insider