2020 Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Fleurieres Cote de Nuits

This domaine started with a wedding. In 1926, Jean Confuron of Vosne-Romanée married Anne-Marie Bouchard of Premeaux, and both brought family vines into the marriage. The couple settled in Premeaux, and by the early 1930s they were bottling their own wine, which was rare in Burgundy at the time. Their two sons, Christian and Jean-Jacques, farmed together until 1980. Jean-Jacques then founded his own domaine in 1981, but he died in January 1983. His widow, Andrée Noëllat, and their daughter Sophie took over.

Sophie met Alain Meunier at the wine school in Beaune, and the two started working the vines together with the 1985 harvest. They married in 1988, and that same year Andrée inherited a hectare of vines from her grandfather, Charles Noëllat, including parcels in the Grand Cru Romanée-Saint-Vivant and the Premier Crus Nuits Boudots and Vosne Beaux Monts. Sophie and Alain moved the estate to organic farming around 1990, and some vineyards are still plowed by horse. Today their son Louis is taking over the cellar, with his wife Justine, who comes from a winemaking family in Vougeot. Louis says there will be no big changes, just some fine-tuning, including using as little sulfur as possible.

Les Fleurières is one of the domaine's key village vineyards: just over a hectare of vines planted in the 1970s. It sits on the south side of Nuits-Saint-Georges, right below the Premier Cru Les Pruliers, facing east, in clay and limestone soils over Burgundy's famous Comblanchien limestone. Nuits-Saint-Georges is one of the great names of the Côte de Nuits, known for deep color and a nose of rose and licorice. Fun fact: "Nuits" has nothing to do with nighttime. It comes from the Latin word for walnuts.

2020 was a hot, dry year in Burgundy. Harvest here started on August 22, one of the earliest on record, and the grapes came in small and very ripe. In the glass that means bright red fruit, a floral lift, and a firm, focused finish. It's a century of family winemaking in one bottle, and it doesn't need a special occasion: open it with roast chicken, a mushroom risotto, or a Sunday-night cheese board.