In August 2025, I took a ten day solo trip to Burgundy during the harvest.  A year prior, I’d made a friend who connected me with his family.  I returned during harvest to experience as much as was possible in person.

When I arrived in Burgundy, they kindly took me to meet one of their friends, producer Emilien Millot, a 5th generation owner and winemaker living in Meursault, France, just south of Beaune where I stayed.

We arrived as he was pressing his Chardonnay from the lieu dits Le Clous very slowly over the course of four hours.  It was expected to produce a 13% abv wine.

Although he was in the middle of harvest, he was waiting on the arrival of more grapes, so he did have a little bit of time to taste through his wines with us.

It was terribly difficult to spit these wines as they were seamless.  I especially enjoyed #3, Les Criots.  The fourth one, Les Noms was a unique blend of 30 Pinot Noir and 70 Gamay which was stunning, but because of the blend, in Bourgogne, it must be categorized as Passe-tout-grains AOC.  PTG, literally means, “pass all grapes,” referring to the historic practice of including various grape varieties, even lower quality ones, in a single cuvee.  It hurts to have to classify it as PTG AOC though when the grapes are of high quality.

Emilien’s fifth wine was a first for Meursault – a Syrah planted in 2020 to see how it would grow and progress.  Now, Syrah needs a lot of heat and dry conditions to ripen – much different conditions than are required for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Aligote, and Gamay.

So, this was a gamble, but so far, so good.  Global warming has got this vigneron thinking ahead of the curve and helping the 6th generation of Millot-Bernard prepare for the future.