Sextant Po à Po 2023

Sextant is the natural wine project of Julien Altaber, who set up near Puligny with the help of Dominique Derain and works with minimal intervention. Po à Po is a skin-contact orange wine from native Aligoté, a grape long planted across Burgundy for its high natural acidity. The fruit comes from a north-facing vineyard on clay and limestone soils, an aspect that slows ripening and preserves freshness, which suits an early-picked 11.5 percent wine of this style. Fermentation runs on the grapes' own yeasts, and the must spends time on its skins, drawing colour, light phenolic grip and texture from the berry skins rather than from oak. The result is bottled with little added sulphur and no fining or filtering. The colour is pale amber. The nose leans on green apple, lemon and white peach with a chamomile edge, and the palate is dry and lightly textured, with citrus peel, pear and a chalky, savoury finish from the limestone soils. Serve at 10 to 12 degrees in a white wine glass. It works well with grilled white fish, raw shellfish and fresh goat cheese.