Last week we had a splendid tasting of some new wines from one of our favourite small domaines in Burgundy:  Château de Chamilly in the Côte Chalonnaise.   This was a reminder, if any were needed, that they make some of the best affordable white burgundies we could hope for.  We are putting together a new shipment in the autumn, including their Montagny 'Les Carlins' and Montagny 'Les Bassets' 1er Cru, and their Mercurey Rouge 'Aux Pieds du Monts Morin', all from the excellent 2024 vintage, all available to order ex-domaine. 

From a beautiful estate, even by Burgundian standards, these are wines that express both their terroir and the utterly charming personality of the people who make them.

The Château de Chamilly is in a delightful little valley, at the southern end of the Côte d'Or.  A few minutes drive south from famous names like Chassagne-Montrachet, the landscape changes from a monoculture of vines to a mixture of woodland and meadows, sprinkled with Charolais cattle...more 'Burgundian' (in a medieval sort of way) than the Côte d'Or itself. 

The little château was built in the 17th century, on the foundations of an earlier 14th-century manor.  Owned since the 19th century by the Desfontaine family, for many years it was run as a mixed farm, producing cattle and grain. 

Brothers Arnaud and Xavier Desfontaine now run the domaine with their mother Veronique.  The ongoing restoration of the (charmingly) run-down château is a constant battle.  The brothers work tirelessly to improve the domaine and do it with great humour and a sense of fun.  

The wines are always notably pure and precise when we taste them from barrel, with very little sign of intervention in the winery.  They only really show their full quality after a few months in bottle, with delightful, layered and complex notes of fruits, flowers and minerality.  

The 2024 Montagny 'Les Carlins' (£180 per dozen in bond) is from a single 'lieu-dit' vineyard, with stony soils, giving the wines a smoky, gun-flint character, and a fine, linear palate, with excellent length. The 2024 Montagny 'Les Bassets' 1er Cru (£240 per dozen in bond) is also from chalky-flinty soils, but with more clay, giving a rounder, more broad-shouldered wine.

We also tasted Chamilly's superb 2024 Mercurey Rouge 'Au Pied du Mont Morin' (£240 per dozen in bond), from a 3.2 hectare vineyard on chalky clay-limestone soils, with an average age of 50 years.  We really noticed the influence of chalk terroir, with a fresh, lively acidity framing the beautifully dense fruit...more red in character than black (quite different from the darker fruit we find in Jeannin-Naltet's Mercureys, but just as concentrated).

Chamilly's wines combine a deeply authenic, no-nonsense, forward-looking approach to making exciting red and white burgundy, with an achingly beautiful place or origin, and centuries of history; so we do hope you will add some to your cellar.  

Offered in bond, landing autumn 2026.