Born in Paris, Jean-Michel Guillon arrived at Gevrey-Chambertin in 1980 with few connections or resources after he retired from aeronautics. Now the estate he runs with his son Alexis has holdings in more than 20 appellations, including Grand Cru sites like Mazis-Chambertin and Vougeot. He is reportedly the biggest buyer of new French oak in Burgundy after Domaine Romanée-Conti and the Hospices de Beaune. He has built up a Domaine of reputation from scratch with the help of his good friends and mentors like Rene Galland and Henri Jayer. As Allen Meadows commented, "Jean-Michel Guillon’s wines retain a clear sense of style and grace and remain identifiably Pinot Noir."

Alexis and Jean-Michel have a reputation for using a level of new oak on their wines that many more traditional producers in Burgundy would think was ridiculous. They believe that due to their work in the vineyard to harvest perfectly ripe fruit, the wines should be aged in the best new French oak money can buy. They feel that the wines do not in fact smell and taste too oaky, rather you get wines that smell and taste expensive: silky, ripe, with that whiff of powdery vanilla that makes the wine's pedigree obvious. This a great Burgundy for newer collectors weaned on California wines, and traditionalists should give it a try as well to see the current style leading the pack.

95 CellarTracker

Opened and let sit in bottle for 30 minutes, not decanted. Purple core with some browning at rim. Complex, enjoyable, and effusive bouquet of dark fruit, earth and sous bois. The mouth revealed rich red and black fruit, with great balance, depth and complexity. The tannins were integrated, and appreciable mid palate stimulation was followed by a 15 second finish. The wine stareted out really good and evolved tremendously over the next 3 hours. You were definitely drinking what you smelled in the glass. It was the wine of the tasting which featured three Grand Cru GC (including a Rousseau). A great wine from a very consistent "under the radar" Burgundy producer. 2/15/2023

93 Burghound

A wonderfully complex, densely fruited and very fresh nose is quite similar to the regular cuvée. However, there is a bit more ripeness and notably more concentration to the intense, serious and beautifully detailed big-bodied flavors that possess buckets of dry extract that confer a velvety palate impression to the explosively long finish. This is a terrific effort and absolutely worth considering. 01/2011