How nice it was to see the smiles return to the faces of Didier and Hélène Defaix. And what charming smiles they are! If Burgundy’s growers were praying for an antidote to the previous year’s taxing season and apocalyptically low yields, someone or something must have been listening. Tasting with Hélène Defaix recently, we were reminded just how well the ’22s have turned out—outstanding in both colours—and how bright and racy the wines are, especially considering the vintage could be generally summarised as warm and dry. When we visited Burgundy last year, grower after grower expressed their delight with their ’22s. Didier Defaix’s contribution to the conversation: “It’s a strong vintage,” he says as we taste a set of wines that tell the same story. “It didn’t go through good or not-so-good phases—it was always showing well. Probably one of the top three vintages in the last 10!” Although we have our own ideas, we didn’t press Didier on the other two. The Defaix’s organically managed Rully domaine is now 6.5 hectares, a fraction of the size of the Chablis estate for which the family is better known. Heck, the family farms more land in the Chablis 1er Côte de Léchet than they do spread across six vineyards in the south of Burgundy. But in this case, small is beautiful. Not only have Didier and his brother Sylvain Defaix turned out a wonderfully finessed and finely sculpted set of Burgundies form this year, but the fact that Rully still flies under the radar means that the pricing remains more than reasonable. If you thought you needed a DeLorean to find top-notch, decent-value GROWER Burgundy these days, the answer is… not quite yet.