2022 Maison Verget Pouilly-Fuisse les Combes Vieilles Vignes

“The 2022 Pouilly-Fuissé Les Combes Vieilles Vignes was picked in three “tries”—that’s to say, successive passages through the vineyard selecting only the ripest fruit. Revealing aromas of pear, toasted nuts, citrus zest, white flowers, beeswax and nutmeg, it’s medium to full-bodied, with a satiny attack that segues into an elegantly fleshy palate built around racy acids and concluding with a long, saline finish.

In the unusually torrid 2022 vintage, Julien Desplans began Maison Verget’s harvest on August 26, wrapping up on September 12, somewhat later than in 2020. Fleshy, textural and concentrated, this is an excellent vintage that will offer broad drinking windows. As I’ve written before, Verget’s Sologny winery is a sizable facility, unlike the tiny cellars of Domaine Guffens-Heynen, but artisanal methods have been intelligently scaled to match the requirements of larger-scale production: large horizontal stainless steel tanks, for example, offer the same lees-wine ratio as oak barrels, and the lees can be worked with nitrogen without introducing any oxygen into the vessel. Such inventiveness—and Desplans’s evident fastidiousness—explain how Verget can offer such quality on such a scale. The best cuvées very much belong among the Mâconnais élite, but this portfolio is also rich with terrific values to purchase by the case, which would make ideal daily drinkers or by-the-glass pours.”