"I want to make the kind of wines that people were making in the 1920s and 1930s – wines with a big personality, the sort we love to drink at home," says wine writer-turned-vigneron William Kelley. Judging by his first releases, he's right on track.
Kelley's role as one of the Wine Advocate's most prolific reviewers has given him unrivalled access to the world's top winemakers, enabling him to act upon a long harboured desire to join them. His own project began in 2018 with a slice of Chambolle-Musigny 'Les Fouchères' – an east-facing lieu-dit planted in the 1950s – to which Kelley has added a cuvée in Gevrey-Chambertin 'Aux Etelois' that touches Domaines Fourrier and Roty's Griotte-Chambertin, a Moulin-à-Vent from a plot over a century old, and a Bourgogne Aligoté from 80-year-old vines in Meursault.
Work in the vineyards and at Kelley's newly-renovated Pommard cellar is meticulous, but the results are perhaps even more astonishing than expected. Little more than a barrel of each cuvée is made, and with most of the production reserved for personal consumption, there is already considerable demand for these future classics.
