Bourgogne Aligoté La Charme aux Prêtres 2023 Domaine Sylvain Pataille

The Bourgogne Aligoté La Charme aux Prêtres 2023 from Domaine Sylvain Pataille is one of the domaine's most discreet and precious cuvées, and among the finest expressions of Aligoté in Côte de Nuits. Its rare bottles are prized by discerning Burgundy lovers. The nose captivates with its purity, the ripe apple and pear fruit typical of Aligoté mingling with the mineral depth of Comblanchien limestone. A magnificent illustration of Sylvain Pataille's craft, and an essential Aligoté to always have chilled.

Terroir and vineyard

The lieu-dit La Charme aux Prêtres sits on Comblanchien limestone, a hard, mineral-rich rock from the upper Bathonian period with excellent drainage, outcropping on the slopes of Marsannay at the Couchey border. This compact limestone terroir creates the cold, precise minerality and remarkable depth that immediately distinguishes this cuvée from other Pataille Aligoté from more clayey or marly soils. Comblanchien limestone, the same stone that paves the Opéra Garnier and Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, forces vine roots deep into the earth to find water and minerals, concentrating the grapes with rare intensity and aromatic precision for the appellation. The vines are farmed under certified organic and biodynamic practices with deliberately limited yields. Manual harvest, gentle pressing, fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Ageing occurs in old barrels for 12 to 18 months to preserve the pure expression of the grape while revealing each subtlety of terroir. Minimal intervention in the cellar.

Tasting profile

The robe is pale yellow with green and golden glints, absolutely limpid and brilliant. The nose captivates with its purity, ripe apple and pear notes typical of Aligoté in its noblest expression mingling with the mineral depth of Comblanchien limestone. On aeration, the terroir's minerality unfolds with a lightly smoky touch evoking warm stones and chalk, with a striking iodine dimension of remarkable frankness and precision. The whole is precise and luminous, with an aromatic purity and coherence that confirm the lieu-dit's nobility. On the palate, the structure is lively and energetic, driven by fresh, well-balanced natural acidity that brings tension and length. The texture is more taut and mineral than other domaine cuvées, directly inherited from Comblanchien's compact limestone. The finish is long and saline, with an iodine persistence of remarkable length where terroir power dialogues with fruit elegance in absolute balance and precision.

The domaine

Born in Marsannay-la-Côte to a non-winemaking family, Sylvain Pataille studied oenology in Bordeaux before returning to passionately champion Côte de Nuits terroirs. He founded his domaine in 1999 with a single leased hectare and patiently built a vineyard of 17 hectares. A convinced advocate for Aligoté's return to Burgundian vineyards, he produces six distinct parcellary Aligoté cuvées, each expressing the singularity of a different lieu-dit in Marsannay and Côte de Nuits. La Charme aux Prêtres is the most mineral and confidential of these expressions, and perhaps the most compelling.

Food pairings

This Bourgogne Aligoté La Charme aux Prêtres pairs beautifully with fine Marennes or Breton oysters, raw scallops with lemon, fresh herb carpaccio of John Dory, roasted turbot, grey shrimp or cold langoustines. It is also remarkable with aged firm-paste goat cheese, whose natural minerality dialogues with Comblanchien limestone. Served between 10 and 12°C in an open-bowl glass to let minerality fully express itself, it reveals the purity, chalky tension and nobility of a terroir-driven Aligoté, among Côte de Nuits' most singular and precise expressions.