“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.

Clos du Roy is the northernmost lieu-dit in Marsannay, lying in Chenôve at around 270 meters on a gentle east-facing slope. Its poor, iron-rich soil is gravelly grèzes litées over White Oolite limestone, shading to red sandy marl and old riverbed alluvium below. Once held by the Dukes of Burgundy, the clos was renamed for the king in 1477, when Charles the Bold’s defeat brought these lands to the French crown.

Pataille’s vines, planted from 1952 onward, are fermented 100% whole cluster with indigenous yeasts, aged 18 months in barrel, then settled and blended for a further 5 to 6 months in stainless steel before bottling with minimal sulfur. The iron in the soil reads clearly in the glass: red cherry, cranberry, and blood orange lifted by rose and a ferrous, peppery snap, with fine tannins and a long finish.