Importer roulette. The wheel spins and we win again! This time it’s the longtime California importer of Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron who has thrown in the towel and we’re pleased to be in a position to help him empty his warehouse. I mean, Jean-Jacques Confuron’s iconic wines are hard enough to find as it is, so it is a double bonus to be able to get current winemaker Louis Confuron’s Cotes de Nuits Villages Les Vignottes at such a nice discount. For the uninitiated, this small domaine, known to its many fans simply as ‘Jay Jay,’ was established back in 1926 with vines inherited on both sides of the marriage of Jean Confuron and Anne-Marie Bouchard, he of Vosne and she from Premeaux. It was their son Jean-Jacques who took over in 1981 but after ding tragically in 1983, it was his wife Andree Noëllat and their daughter Sophie who took over the estate. Sophie and her husband Alain Meunier ran the estate until just recently when their son Louis took over the reins. All that is to say, there is a lot of Burgundy royalty in this domaine’s DNA and nine hectares of amazing vines in iconic vineyards like Romanee St. Vivant, Nuits Boudots and Vosne Beaux Monts. But, for us, it’s the family’s small production of mainstay Les Vignottes, from two adjacent organically-farmed vineyards planted in the 1980s next to the village of Fixin, that interests us. This cuvee has always been, for us, the epitome of the Confuron style, one that emphasizes aromatics and charm over weight and power. Louis is an early picker, committed to getting better acidity and creating wines of a more elegant style. But still, given these vineyards’ proclivities, it’s also a very generous wine with great fruit to go along with its exceedingly pretty, lifted aromatics. There’s a small percentage of whole clusters in the ferment that brings up the fruit and a tiny percentage of new wood that adds texture and a bit of woodsy spice to the wine, but this is not a powerhouse Burgundy. Instead, it will seduce you with its many charms over time as it opens in the glass. Cooler, and more blue fruited than red, I love the cinnamon, star anise and sage-y aromas that lead to a mid-weight palate that seems to add gras and gravitas the longer it sits. Is that a bit of Nuits-like rusticity in there too? Must be all the Premier Cru Nuits St. Georges it sits next to in the cellar for three years! Yes, this is definitely our kind of red Burgundy; weighty enough to stand up to a leg of lamb, but lithe enough for grilled salmon too! Drinking very well now, we’ll consume ours over the next five or six years. The importer has endowed us with the last 28 bottles in California and we think $55 is a pretty damned good price for them! Come and get yours.