Edmond Cornu & Fils Vieilles Vignes Aloxe-Corton 2020

From old-vine parcels at the foot of the Corton hill comes a brooding, sauvage 2020 Aloxe-Corton from Edmond Cornu & Fils – 100% Pinot Noir with real Côte de Nuits swagger. Made from vines planted as far back as 1942, it's a savory and structured take on a prestigious village. For under $70 (the lowest price in the country), it's one serious old-vine Burgundy for the money. Production is small, so don’t sleep on it!

Aloxe-Corton lives in the shadow of the Corton Grand Cru hill. Cornu's "Vieilles Vignes" is crafted from a handful of old parcels planted across 1942, 1958, and 1971 – yes, some of these vines predate WWII's end – anchored primarily in Les Cras with backup from spots like Les Boutières, sitting on the classic Aloxe mix of gravelly, clay-rich limestone. Old roots dig deep, yields are low, and the resulting Pinot grants genuine grip and character. If you've heard Aloxe described as "sauvage," this is your dictionary definition – wild, savory, and a little untamed in the best way.

The Cornu family has been in Ladoix since 1870 and founded the domaine in 1875, but the modern story starts with Edmond, who took the reins in 1956 and – refreshingly stubborn for the era – began bottling the estate's own wine in 1959 instead of selling it off in bulk to négociants. His son Pierre grew the place into the roughly 16.5-hectare estate it is today, spread across Ladoix, Chorey, Savigny, and Aloxe-Corton, with the whole operation farmed under France's Haute Valeur Environnementale certification (meaning cover crops, hedgerows, and beehives at the edge of the forest). In 2020, Pierre and Édith's daughter Lucie came home to join the family after training in Beaune, Bordeaux, and stints as far-flung as New Zealand and Oregon – so this vintage also happens to land right as the next generation stepped in.

2020 in Burgundy was warm and generous, and it shows here with a deep, glass-staining ruby leading into black cherry, damson, and cassis, then a savory second act of forest floor, dried porcini, cracked pepper, and something almost meaty and iron-tinged underneath. It's wrapped around firm-but-polished tannins and a long, mineralite finish. Hand-harvested, fully destemmed, and aged in small oak (with a touch of new wood on the older-vine lots), it's drinking beautifully now with air and has the structure to keep evolving for several more years. My advice? Grab at least two, drink one this winter with something hearty, and let the other one hang out in the cellar for a while.

FOOD PAIRINGS: You can and should go full Burgundian and make coq au vin, complete with a glass of this thrown in.