Winemaking chez Jacques is simple: the grapes are harvested by hand, pneumatically pressed, fermented and matured in barrel for a year, before being racked to tank for a further six months' élevage. Neither smoke nor mirrors, just classic white Burgundy. - William Kelley, Robert Parker Wine Advocate

If you are looking for classic Puligny-Montrachet, rigorously and consistently refined year-in year-out then Jacques Carillon is your man. The elder of the two Carillon brothers, he continues to make wines in the style of the old domaine Louis Carillon. These are wines that exemplify the village and indeed this bottling to my mind, across many vintages, offers the finest, most direct representation of Puligny. If Meursault is beurre et noisettes (butter and hazelnut), then Puligny is perhaps lemon and white flowers. Aromatics aside, a Jacques Carillon wine shows the unmistakably steely spine essential to Puligny and indeed, often offers the sense of being tightly wound. 

These are wines that in are in many ways distinguished in the current context of White Burgundy more by what they lack than what they have- these are not wines of reduction, of overwhelming nuttiness or oak spice, of overripe fruit nor of noticeably early harvesting. The wines see a maximum of 15% new oak, though you'd swear the wines somehow picked up their steeliness from a stainless tank.  

The 2018 Puligny is pale lemon green in the glass and has a focused nose of fresh flowers, with a slight herbal note and the impression of struck stones. A touch of candied lemon and pear appear after some time for the tightly focused wine to unfurl. The palate has a fine texture around an almost painfully precise spine. There is such a strong through line to the wine that makes quite a contrast to many a flabby colleague of the vintage. This gets straight to the cool chalky center of Puligny and, as usual with Carillon, this will doubtless repay cellaring a long while, and a long while longer than you'd expect.

All assembled. Clear bright and handsome. A little touch of the greengage. No feeling of dilution although not quite the fruit weight of 2017. Lovely saline touch at the finish, a slight youthful bitterness. Will be typical, generous but not heavy. - Jasper Morris, Inside Burgundy

- Spencer