Meursault Premier Cru Charmes, Domaine Ballot Millot, 2021

Ballot Millot's Charmes is the wine that tends to stop conversations. Les Charmes is the largest and most celebrated premier cru in the village, and in 2021 it produced wines of real precision; a vintage that rewarded careful growers who picked cleanly and didn't overwork the fruit.

This is Chardonnay that hasn't been pushed: the oak is present but polite, the richness is genuine but never heavy, and the minerality - that flinty, saline quality that Meursault's limestone soils give when the vines are old enough to mean business - runs clean through the palate.