2021 Domaine Pansiot Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Nuits Rouge Burgundy 12pk 12x750ml

The Geantet-Pansiot estate has been making Burgundy for seventy years — founded in 1954 when Edmond Geantet married Bernadette Pansiot and started producing wine on seven acres split between Gevrey-Chambertin and Bourgogne appellations. Vincent Geantet took charge in 1989, and his son Fabien joined him in 2006 after working alongside his father since age twelve. Today they farm thirty-two acres across Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, and the Hautes Cotes, practicing lutte raisonee with no herbicides or chemical fertilizers.

This is Hautes Cotes de Nuits — the hillside appellation behind the Cote de Nuits grand crus, where altitude and cooler sites give Pinot Noir a nervy, red-fruited profile that drinks closer to the famous villages below than the price suggests. The forty-one-year-old vines are rooted in clay-limestone, hand-harvested, fermented with indigenous yeast, and aged fourteen months in oak with thirty percent new.

The 2021 vintage in the Cote de Nuits dodged the worst of the spring frost and delivered reds of balance and grace — less affected than the Cote de Beaune, the best will age well. Wine Spectator scored this 90 points and called it "lush and fruity, exuding kirsch, cherry, raspberry and floral aromas," adding that "chalky tannins and red fruit persist on the finish" and pegging the drink window through 2032.

The glass shows classic Burgundian Pinot: red fruits with a touch of kirsch on the nose, cranberry ice and mocha notes on the palate, a darker fruited edge with saddle leather and mushroom duxelles. It has the mineral spine and racy brightness Pinot needs to age, and the fruit density to drink beautifully now. For $29.99 a bottle in a twelve-pack, you're getting seventy-year family-estate Burgundy that drinks well above its appellation and its price — the kind of wine that makes the famous villages seem overpriced.