You would expect a bottle of 2000 Bonnes Mares to be pretty good, wouldn’t you? Indeed, when drunk at a lunch in 2006 with other wine trade colleagues (an all-too-rare occurrence, alas), the agreement on the wine’s quality was unanimous. Drouhin-Laroze on the label, and the rest, as they say…

The fifth generation has just recently passed the baton to the sixth, with Philippe and Christine Drouhin stepping back to allow kids Nicolas and Caroline to continue seamlessly the work that first began in 1850. They oversee an extraordinary array of ‘climats’, including 6 Grands Crus, yet everything is couched with typical Burgundian understatement. And like all the top growers, they will admit to no great secrets in making the wines: do the work in the vineyard to ensure the best possible quality of Pinot Noir grape at the time of picking, and then things will look after themselves – no need to mess around when Mother Nature is able to deliver the goods.