Domaine Pierre Girardin Meursault 1er Cru "Les Charmes"

Pierre-Vincent Girardin launched his domaine in 2016 at roughly 19 years old — the 13th generation of a Burgundian winemaking family — and immediately broke from Meursault's butter-and-oak tradition by fermenting his whites in custom 456-litre barrels (double the Burgundy-standard 228-litre pièce), a deliberate engineering choice to halve the wood-to-wine contact ratio and keep terroir signal clean. Les Charmes sits on the mid-slope of Meursault at approximately 260 m elevation, on Jurassic marls and marly limestones with east-to-south exposure — soils that deliver structural tension and a saline, chalky mineral thread rather than the fat, glyceric texture the appellation's reputation often implies. Fermentation proceeds with indigenous yeasts in those oversized François Frères / Seguin-Moreau barrels; no bâtonnage is performed, preserving the wine's angular freshness; 30% new oak is used at village level and above, followed by 6 months in stainless steel before bottling unfined and unfiltered on the lunar calendar. The refusal of bâtonnage in a premier cru Meursault — where lees-stirring is near-universal practice — is the defining transgression: where peers build creaminess, Girardin builds tension. The 2022 vintage in Burgundy delivered generous ripeness tempered by a cool August, producing whites with vivid acidity and mid-weight concentration — a strong fit for Girardin's precision-first house style; drink 2025–2032.