More about Jean-Marie Chaland

Jean-Marie Chaland makes the kind of Mâconnais wine that converts skeptics: sunny, generous Chardonnay from Viré-Clessé with real mineral cut, plus a few curiosities, from hilltop Pinot Noir to Gamay in both still and sparkling form.

His family has grown grapes in Viré since the 1930s, when his grandfather Victor planted vines. His father, Jean-Noël, began producing domaine wines in 1967, and Jean-Marie created his own estate, Domaine Sainte Barbe, in 2000. It takes its name from a cross on the hill above the vineyards. The family vines have never seen synthetic herbicides, and Jean-Marie was among the first in Viré-Clessé to be certified organic. Today he farms roughly nine hectares in some two dozen plots across Viré, Montbellet and Burgy, on limestone-rich soils.

Everything is picked by hand and fermented with native yeasts, mostly in stainless steel, followed by time on the fine lees. Alongside Mâcon-Villages and several Viré-Clessé bottlings, including old-vine and single-site wines such as La Perrière and Clos de Buc, there's a Bourgogne Pinot Noir from the top of the slope, a Mâcon-Burgy Gamay made in a Beaujolais style, and a Gamay Crémant rosé called Perle de Roche. These are honest, deeply satisfying wines, made to be enjoyed rather than decoded.