Under the Radar in Rully Just beyond where the Cote-d’Or ends, one of Burgundy’s best comeback stories begins. If there’s one road that’s on every wine lover’s bucket list, it would doubtless be Burgundy’s D974. Heading south from Dijon, a 60km drive takes you through 37 picturesque villages in the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune, tracing the east-facing slope of the limestone escarpment that gives the Côte-d’Or its name. When that justly famous ridge finally peters out near Santenay, plenty of people peter out with it. If only they knew to veer onto the D981 instead! If there’s a more lucrative left-hand turn in the world of wine, we’re hard-pressed to name it. The Côte Chalonnaise doesn’t run along a single escarpment but rather comprises three isolated patches of limestone vineyards west of the Saône River, between the Côte de Beaune and the Mâconnais. The first of these (that is, the closest to the “Route des Grand Crus”) includes the villages of Mercurey and Rully—whose modern winemaking history is inseparable from Domaine Paul & Marie Jacqueson. Viticulture in Rully goes back to antiquity. The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon, the powerful Maison de Vergy, and the Dukes of Bourgogne have all exerted influence in these rolling hills. But roughly a millennium of winemaking momentum was all but undone by a single 20th-century cataclysm. By the time the First World War had wrought its worst—claiming untold lives and leaving France in ruins—the lion’s share of Rully’s vineyards lay abandoned. The interwar period did little to change the area’s fortunes. Of some 600 hectares of vineyards in the 19th century, only 90 remained by 1945. Virtually nobody believed in the future—but Henri Jacqueson was one man who did. In 1946 he cobbled together some ancestral land and began replanting vines. Little by little he acquired additional plots, seeding an estate that today boasts 18 hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—including 9 Premier Cru cuvées. In 1972 Henri passed the reins to his indefatigable son Paul, who in turn handed them to his daughter Marie in 2006. She was joined by her brother Pierre in 2015. The estate has been organic for nearly 20 years and the siblings are harvesting the rewards—by hand, naturally, since they’re as meticulous in the vineyards as they are in the cellar. Low yields and judicious use of new oak—typically about 15-20 percent for the whites and up to 25 percent in the reds—foster exquisite expressions of their enviable clay-limestone terroir, which tends to be a tad warmer and dryer than their northern neighbors in the Côte-d’Or. There’s a reason Jacqueson’s wines appear on just about every wine list you open in Beaune. The Rully whites, aged on golden lees, channel honeycomb and tart apples alongside hedgerow flowers within a mineral sheath as polished as Tahitian pearls. The Rully reds are fruit-forward in the purest sense of the term, with fine-grained tannins that melt away after a few years’ slumber. The bottlings from Mercurey (where Pinot Noir accounts for 80 percent of grape production) offer crisp evocations of red berries tinged with tobacco and cocoa—galvanized by the stony limestone bedrock. With intriguing variations borne of subtle shifts in site and soil—from the brown calcareous slope of the south-facing Rully 1er Cru Pucelle, to the pebbly clay over marl-limestone of the east-southeast Rully 1er Cru Gresigny (whose 1950-planted vines underscore Henri’s lasting influence), to the east-exposed clays of Mercurey 1er Cru Les Velleys—Jacqueson crafts its wines with metronomic precision and consistency. They’re fresh, generous, and laser-focused. To follow Marie through the barrels stacked in their frigid barn-like cellar is to see a supremely self-assured businesswoman in complete control of her domaine. Yet it’s actually Pierre who heads the cellar and vineyard operations. The good-humored former schoolteacher leaves no variable to chance—even his barrel selection starts with regular visits to the forest from which the oak is sourced. Together they are the ultimate credit to both their grandfather, who did so much to resurrect the appellation, and their father, who worked so hard to champion it. Truth be told, the Côte Chalonnaise has attracted too much critical praise in the last decade to remain quite so undiscovered. We’re not the only ones plying the D981. But we’re proud to represent the family that stoked the turnaround—and keeps raising the bar with each new vintage. Rully La Barre+- Varietal/Blend: Pinor Noir Vineyard Area: From a .85-hectare parcel on the the plateau above Rully that was planted in 1992 Soil: Brownish-reddish limestone and clay. Elevation: 325-350 meters Exposure: West Vine Training Method: Guyot Vinification: Cold maceration (between 5 and 10 C°) between 3 and 6 days, then alcoholic fermentation, maceration for 2 to 3 weeks. The frequency of pumping over or any punching down depends on the year and is decided after tasting. Maturation: The wine matures for 12 months in oak barrels (15% new wood) with one racking in July followed by fining with egg whites barrel-by-barrel. Bottling is carried out without filtration.