Jean Marc has been in charge of his family’s small domaine for nearly two decades now. He has combined his experience with a relatively new chai at Nuits Saint Georges and is coming out with some very solid wines indeed.

There is a tendency to pick a little later (though never the last for the Cotes de Nuits Villages), use careful selection and then vinify in the natural way. There is just a little new oak on the Grand Crus and the Suchots but the wines rely on a very natural feel and intensity of fruit.

The Cotes de Nuits Villages has been a great value wine for some years. Jean Marc and Christine’s second daughter, Alix is making her mark … this is her fourth vintage and the wines have now become highly prized both in Europe, America and Asia.

Jean Marc is also dabbling with a delicious new Amphora wine made with bought-in Aligote grapes and was kind enough to include a sample bottle in his 2016 red Burgundy sample shipment sent over for his annual London En-primeur tasting.

Jean Marc Millot Bourgogne Aligote 2017, Burgundy, France

Still bright lemon yellow with a hint of haze, this is an exotic Aligote brimming with energy and character. The aromatics are quite lifted and phenolic, showing notes of baked apples, apple skins, pear purée and a savoury, earthy, white pepper, yellow pastille fruit intensity. This wine is still in amphora and so retains a vibrant crunchy green fruit concentration, plush fleshy depth, nervy energy, and a most delicious sweet apple bon bon finish. While not a finished wine yet, if Jean Marc can preserve the impressive textural breadth at bottling, this is going to be an absolute cracker that should make natural wine geeks week at the knees.

(Wine Safari Score: 88-90+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)