“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.

L’Ancestrale is the domaine’s flagship red, drawn from vines planted between 1930 and 1945 in three of Marsannay’s most respected lieux-dits: Clos du Roy, Clémengeot, and Les Ouzeloy. The parcels sit at about 290 meters on light, pinkish grèzes litées over White Oolite, among the northernmost vineyards in the Côte-d’Or.

Fermented 100% whole cluster with indigenous yeasts and a gentle hand at extraction, the wine is aged 24 months in barrel, half of it new, and bottled with minimal sulfur. The 2023 marries concentration to lift, with black cherry, wild raspberry, and violet giving way to forest floor, iron, and spice, its tannins fine and its finish long. This is Marsannay with gravitas: beautiful now but worthy of 10-15 years of cellar time from vintage.