“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.

 Le Chapitre lies just north of the village on a steeper east-facing slope, its light pinkish, gravelly grèzes litées running over White Oolite limestone at 270 to 300 meters. Long one of the most prized sites in the area, it sat outside the appellation when Marsannay was drawn in 1987 and was only promoted to village level with the 2019 vintage. The name recalls the Chapter of Autun’s collegiate church, whose archbishop first planted vines here.

Pataille farms parcels planted in 1950, 1980, and 1990, fermented 100% whole cluster with indigenous yeasts and aged 18 months in barrel, with minimal sulfur at bottling. The 2023 is deep and firmly structured, with black cherry, blackberry, and violet, a thread of white pepper from the whole clusters, and limestone-driven length. Lovely now, but could be cellared for up to a decade from vintage.