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Offering up aromas of warm bread, white peach, mirabelle plums, fresh pear, honeycomb and citrus oil, the 2017 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru is full-bodied, satiny and enveloping, with excellent depth at the core, lively acids and a long, mouthwatering finish. Damien Colin produced two barrels this year, one once used, the other a new fût constructed from staves air-dried for 48 months. Tasted from bottle, this has fulfilled all the promise it showed last year.

The 2017 vintage is a great success for Domaine Marc Colin, an estate that today ranks among the Côte de Beaune's finest sources for white Burgundy. Eschewing stylistic extremes, Damien Colin is producing wines that combine amplitude and incisiveness to great effect. Thanks to a more judicious approach to new oak—including heavy investment in demi-muids and foudres—these wines are also considerably purer and better integrated than they were a decade ago. The evolution, of course, never ends: Colin will be extending the élevage of some of his 2017s beyond the customary 12-16 months, and I am excited to see the results from bottle. Meanwhile, I was also impressed by a selection of Colin's 2016s that I tasted from bottle: the wines have become more complete with élevage, integrating their tangy acids. In particular, a stunning Saint-Aubin 1er Cru En Montceau stood out and will be worth a special effort to track down. Readers should also know that Damien's brother Joseph has left the Domaine Marc Colin—an amicable separation, I'm happy to add—to establish his own estate, reviewed in this report under Domaine Joseph Colin.

| William Kelley