Domaine Alvina Pernot
The Pernot family have tended vines in Puligny for the best part of two centuries. Alvina Pernot was born and raised in Puligny-Montrachet, surrounded from childhood by some of Burgundy’s most celebrated Chardonnay vineyards. Today, she is one of the most exciting producers in the Côte de Beaune.
The Pernot family is one of the commune’s largest vineyard owners, with holdings extending across some of the appellations that have made Puligny one of the world’s great white-wine villages. Alvina grew up helping her father and uncle at Domaine Paul Pernot, the family estate founded by her grandfather.
Puligny-Montrachet’s Jurassic limestones and marls, with more clay on the lower village-level slopes, give its white wines a distinctive mineral tension and structure. The village produces what many consider to be the finest, most precise, and most mineral-driven Chardonnay.
Those early years gave Alvina something that cannot easily be taught: an intimate knowledge of the vines. She learned their geography, their personalities, and their differences, plot by plot, while acquiring practical experience in both the vineyard and the cellar.
In 2017, Alvina and her husband, Philippe Abadie, took a decisive step towards producing their own wines when they acquired La Rue aux Vaches, a village Puligny-Montrachet parcel situated beneath the Premier Cru sites Clos des Meix and Les Pucelles. In 2018, they made their first vintage under the Alvina Pernot name. The project began as a micro-négoce, producing only 8,000 bottles. Given their pedigree, the wines immediately attracted attention.Their philosophy was, and remains, deliberately distinct from the richer, more traditional style associated with the family domaine. Alvina and Philippe wanted greater tension, precision, and mineral energy.
The scale of the enterprise has changed dramatically since their first release, and production has grown to around 35,000 bottles, with the range expanding from seven to twenty-four cuvées. The couple now own additional plots, including Les Noyers Brets and La Rue de Bois, while continuing to work with an expanding selection of purchased fruit from trusted growers.
The first wines were made at Domaine Paul Pernot before the couple’s own winery was completed in 2022. Having their own facility has given Alvina and Philippe greater control and the ability to focus more attention on giving full expression to their different climats and lieux-dits.
Alvina Pernot has inherited an extraordinary place and an extraordinary name. However, she is not simply preserving a family legacy. Instead, she is testing it, questioning it, and gradually making it her own. In Burgundy, where history can weigh heavily on a young producer, that may be the most exciting thing of all.
Puligny-Montrachet has gained more than another Pernot — Alvina is an exciting new producer with a song to sing that is all her own.
Alvina Pernot Puligny-Montrachet ‘Clos de Noyers Brets’ 2023
Maturation was in a combination of oak barrels and (for the first time this vintage) 600-litre amphorae (about 40%).
Initial aromas are of gunpowder and flint, which give way to an attractive bouquet of fig, white peach, grapefruit, wild honey, acacia, and a whiff of croissant. On the palate, the wine shows bright fruit (freshness over richness), with flavours of white peach, green fig, and a touch of citrus. There is a line of fine chalky acidity running through the wine, and a delightful wash of minerality across the back palate, which lingers on the aftertaste. The fruit/structure balance is exceptional, and the overall wine is a wonderful expression of clarity and sense of place.
This is an outstanding village Puligny-Montrachet, drinking well now; it should continue to gain further complexity for another five to eight years. 94/100.
Tasted at The Sobhana Project, Nwadana Village, Inle Lake, Myanmar, 2nd September 2026
Darren Gall
