Domaine de Hubert Lamy - St Aubin 2006 Superb (affordable) White Burgundy from an Exciting Young Winemaker

  The hilly St Aubin vineyards

"Among the best whites that I have ever seen from him." -Allen Meadows, Burghound

2006 St. Aubin Clos du Meix: "A subtle touch of pain grillé sets off ripe and exceptionally fresh floral, lemon, lime and wet stone aromas where the mineral character also characterizes the delicious and solidly concentrated flavors that possess both lovely mid-palate density and a palate staining finish. This is worth a look as the balance is really lovely. 89/2011+" -Allen Meadows, Burghound

Olivier Lamy produces white Burgundies which actually taste as great as white Burgundies are supposed to. If you've ever made an excuse for a white Burgundy or lowered your expectations, stop right now! You deserve a great bottle!

Bob knows he has to "lock up the Lamys" just so I won't run through them at a meteoric clip. Any excuse to uncork them is fine with me: "Hey we've got a great Netflix, let's have a Lamy." "You're heating up the leftover pizza, let's have a Lamy" "It's stopped raining, let's have a Lamy." I've got it bad for Olivier Lamy. Uncork one, you'll see what I mean.

Can you tell I'm excited about this wine?

Olivier Lamy (and a few other growers like Henri Boillot at a much higher price) want to make wines that are the finest expression of Chardonnay you can find anywhere. And they are doing it! And Olivier is doing it in St Aubin, an appellation that some people have never heard of!

St Aubin is a small hamlet of 300 residents backed into a limestone slope high in the hills west of Chassagne Montrachet. The village is very old with origins back to 1000, and there is evidence that the village was inhabited during the Bronze and Iron ages. The soil in these sites is nearly pure limestone and the wines produced are a very succinct expression of their terroir with some almond nuances thrown in. These are wines that have some ageing capability just like Meursault, Chassagne Montrachet and Puligny Montrachet with their $50 per bottle price tags.

Domaine Lamy is an estate you should know about if you're trying to bring high quality Burgundy to the table at about half the price. The Lamys have lived in St Aubin since the 1600s. It's a father and son operation, but mostly Olivier is in charge now. He took over the Domaine from his father in 1996. Olivier stopped selling his wine to the cooperatives and actually pulled up his marginal vines, leaving just the best vines in his best parcels.

Olivier keeps his yields very low, uses a sorting table to select only the ripest grapes for the vat and uses a judicious amount of new oak so the fruit is not overwhelmed. He hardly ever fines or filters.

Lamy's wines are admittedly not inexpensive, but they represent the work of a Domaine that is absolutely dedicated to bringing you the highest expression of terroir at the quality level of a much more expensive white Burgundy. Cynthia Hurley