Farr Vintners has been importing the wines of Jean-Marie Guffens for more than 30 years now. Our enthusiasm for the wines – both from his negociant arm Verget and Domaine Guffens-Heynen – is stronger than ever and we count Jean-Marie as a good friend. He is also nothing short of a genius winemaker, if something of a maverick.
Praise for Jean-Marie is by no means a new phenomenon though the Domaine Guffens Heynen wines have received phenomenal ratings in the “Wine Advocate” over the past couple of years and have now - some would say finally - achieved real cult status. William Kelley writes of Jean-Marie: “Guffens produces some of the most exciting wines in all of Burgundy; whites which unite tension, texture and amplitude in rare harmony”.
Jancis Robinson writes “his wines can easily withstand comparison with the finest white burgundies.” … “the wines of Guffens-Heynen (not a name that trips easily off an Anglophone tongue, admittedly) have for years been giving top-quality Côte d’Or white burgundy a run for their money. I have been given Guffens wine in their teens or more blind alongside Meursaults and Pulignys of the same age and preferred the former”.
In short: these are wines that are the pinnacle of their appellation, wines that will knock many a premier or grand cru white from the Côte d'Or sideways.
Demand for Guffens-Heynen has been overwhelming over the past three years and what limited stocks we have been able to offer have been fetching increasingly high prices. 2022, though, was at last a generous crop for Burgundy and we are able to offer a few cases of these truly exceptional wines.
