“Pataille is proof that major Burgundy can come from a minor address,” Jancis Robinson has written of the humble village of Marsannay. Sylvain Pataille’s father, a bus driver by trade, spent his free time helping in a friend’s vineyards, and an uncle owned an estate in Bordeaux that the family visited every summer. Even as a child, Sylvain knew he belonged among the vines. He started with a single hectare in 1999 and slowly built the domaine to 15, farming organically since 2008 with biodynamic methods and consulting as an oenologist across the region. Along the way he turned single-site aligoté into one of the most talked-about categories in Burgundy.

This is the domaine’s foundational aligoté, drawn from vines averaging 50 years old. Roughly 60% comes from Champ Forey, on limestone and gravel, and 40% from Auvonnes, where clay and marl are studded with small stones. Together they balance tension with roundness.

The grapes are pressed directly and fermented with indigenous yeasts, two-thirds in used barrels and one-third in tank, then aged 12 months with only a minimal addition of sulfur at bottling. The 2023 is generous without ever losing tension, with notes of lemon zest, green apple, and quince over crushed stone and a saline finish.