Benjamin Leroux is widely regarded as one of the finest vignerons of his generation in Burgundy, and the wines are legendary for their purity: each bottle he releases is snapped up by collectors around the world. He grew up in Beaune, where his parents ran a flower shop on the Place Carnot. There were no vines in the family. He enrolled at the town's lycée viticole at fifteen, and at twenty-four was handed the direction of Domaine du Comte Armand in Pommard, where he stayed for fifteen vintages before founding his own domaine and négoce in 2007. He now vinifies close to thirty hectares running from Chassagne-Montrachet to Gevrey-Chambertin, eight of them his own, certified organic since 2016 and worked biodynamically. He pushes for the same degree of care in the vineyards he buys from. In a full vintage that comes to some fifty separate cuvées. "It takes more time and more energy to work these plots," he says. "It fills me with energy, too. Touching so many different terroirs. I don't feel as though I am losing my time."

The aligoté doré comes from Les Pontots in Meursault, a third of a hectare low on an east-facing slope where the soil runs deep and clay-rich, planted in the 1980s and again in the early 2000s and farmed organically by the Leroux team. He first made an aligoté in 2016 from old vines in Bouzeron, added the Meursault parcel the following year, and since 2023 has drawn the wine entirely from here.

The fruit is pressed directly, settled, and fermented with indigenous yeasts in used barrels, where it stays a year before racking to tank for a final few months. Meyer lemon and quince up front, hawthorn blossom behind them, with a chalky, saline finish and vivid acidity that holds everything upright. Drink through 2030.