Today, we offer just our second allocation of wines from this impressive chalonnais grower. To recap, Nathalie Theulot inherited the family estate directly from her grandmother in 1987 and, with the support of her husband, Jean-Claude Theulot, has piloted the domaine from strength to strength. All quality practices you would expect from a Bibendum grower are celebrated here, too: high-quality vine genetics and rootstocks; precise organic viticulture; hand harvesting; and low yields. Theulot is also a dab hand in the cellar where destemming, gentle extractions and moderate use of new oak showcase the graceful side of this little-understood appellation. If you are new to this part of Burgundy, Mercurey has a terroir pedigree to match its status as red-wine ground zero of the Côte Chalonnaise. The landscape is a southerly continuation of the Côte d’Or, with some perfectly angled slopes and a rock structure dominated by Jurassic limestone of the Bathonian and Oxfordian ages. In Inside Burgundy, Jasper Morris MW notes that “the red wines of Mercurey can be the deepest, firmest and richest reds of the Côte Chalonnaise”. You can certainly feel that intensity in Theulot’s wines. Yet all her reds carry the vibrancy, charm and character that convey Burgundy: Pinot Noir promised land. And all this at a fraction of the cost of comparable wines grown just a half-hour north. The domaine’s 2021s are a departure from its full-bodied, cellar-worthy 2020s. This year, the fruit has an engaging buoyancy that—alongside more tension and lithe, feathery tannins—makes the wines considerably more approachable. Alongside the red wines, the domaine also makes a lovely Pinot-dominant crémant, and 2021 sees the first release of a deliciously chalky estate Aligoté. It's worth noting that Theulot Juillot rarely submits its wines for review, so no scores appear here. As Nathalie explained: “What’s the point of trying to attract new fans when we are sometimes already unable to satisfy our regular clients.”