La Maison Verget Macon-Villages 2006

Jean-Marie Guffens of Verget and Guffens-Heynen is one of the finest white winemakers in the world today. His recent listing in Michel Bettane’s The World’s Greatest Wines reaffirms this fact.

Guffens is a white Burgundy specialist producing small batches of brilliant Chablis, Mâconnais and Cote d’Or whites. He is unquestionably the leading producer of the Macon (Guffens-Heynen is the only producer in the Mâconnais to receive the maximum three star rating by France’s leading wine Guide Le Classement of La revue du Vin de France) and is up there with the very finest Chablis producers.

In terms of his Macon wines under the Verget label, those searching for highly refined yet intense white Burgundies at very reasonable prices need look no further. Verget’s white burgundies from the Mâconnais are every bit as good, if not better, than the wines offered by many Côte d’Or producers. As Such, these wines represent some of the finest, white wine values going around.

The Verget style? Winemaker Jean-Marie Guffens perhaps summed it up best when he told us: “I am Flemish, I love purity.” In The New France, (Mitchell Beazley, 2002), Andrew Jefford described the Verget style in the following way; “Don’t buy Verget wines looking for the kind of cheese paste, farm straw richness of traditional ‘funky’ white burgundy; these are white wines made with the kind of ravishing purity, compelling sensual austerity more familiar among the greatest winemakers of the Saar, the Ruwer, or Alsace.” In other words don̻t expect to smell the popcorn, smoke, sulphite and lees notes that are typical of so much white burgundy. In fact, Guffens believes that lees stirring and sulphites are embellishments used in white burgundy to disguise shortcomings (much as dosage and lees aging are used in Champagne).

He aims to minimise any winemaking influence. He wants you to taste the fruit in all its purity.

Jefford also rates Verget as a “two star” producer of Chablis (the same rating he gives Verget for the rest of Burgundy and the same rating that Verget gets in Le Classement). The Chablis rating is significant as there are only two other Chablis producers given this rating; Dauvissat and Raveneau! Jefford writes; “It is my belief that it is from Chablis’ raw materials that Jean-Marie Guffens has created some of his greatest wines.” Guffens pulls out all stops to produce Chablis with the density and intensity of the finest Cote d’Or whites. This is reflected in his pricing of these wines.

Verget Macon Villages Grand Elevage 2006 is “reserved and serious aromatically with floral and chardonnay fruit aromas preceding ripe, rich and sweet flavors that possess depth and a long finish.”