Sarah Marsh Volnay 1er Cru 'En Chevret' 2018

Spending the last fifteen years writing about Burgundy’s vineyards and tasting thousands of its wines, Master of Wine Sarah Marsh is now tapping the close relationships she’s made with brilliant growers for her own terroir-focused negoce winemaking project.

For her first vintage in 2017, Sarah approached farmers who rarely part with their precious grapes to ask if they might make an exception to sell her a tiny amount of fruit. Vinifying side-by-side with Dominique Lafon at Château de Bligny, Sarah crafted single-site cuvées from Meursault ‘Narvaux’ and Savigny-lès-Beaune ‘Les Bas Liards’, which quickly garnered acclaim from critics including Steven Spurrier and Jancis Robinson.

A year later, Nicolas Rossignol – fifth generation of his winegrowing family and one of Volnay’s most dynamic farmers – offered Sarah a portion of Pinot Noir from two of his neighbouring 1er Cru parcels, ‘Santenots’ and ‘En Chevrets’.

A hidden gem (most of the vineyard is bottled by just two domaines), ‘En Chevrets’ is a 6.5ha plot of 40-year-old vines whose clay-rich soils add richness and roundness to its wines. Farmed biodynamically and harvested by hand, Sarah’s fruit is 100% de-stemmed and fermented with native yeasts, before being aged in one- and two-year-old barriques.

From Burgundy’s warm 2018 vintage – an excellent year for cooler and clay-based vineyards – Sarah’s ‘En Chevrets’ exhibits a gorgeous fragrance of fresh berries and lively floral tones carried by its satin-soft texture. With 6 years of age, complex forest floor notes have started to appear, but will evolve beautifully over the next decade. Just 900 bottles were made.

As prices and demand for red Burgundy with bottle age are at an all-time high, Sarah’s one-off bottling of ‘En Chevrets’ represents fantastic value for winemaking of this calibre.

Wild strawberry and raspberry, cloves, and forest floor. Plush and long, with gentle grip. Drink to 2034+.