Vinified and bottled without sulfur, Valette's 2015 Macon-Chaintré Vieilles Vignes responds well to oxygen—in fact, it's best decanted—and the more air it sees, the less wild it seems. Opening in the glass with aromas of buttered orchard fruit, orange rind, smoke and nutmeg, the wine is medium to full-bodied, satiny-textured and muscular, with lively acids, chewy structuring extract and a long, sapid finish. This is an intensely characterful Macon-Chaintré that exemplifies the last two decades of reflection and evolution chez Valette. Any readers who find parallels with the wines of Jean-Fran?ois Ganevat will be interested to know that Valette told me that the two producers are working with fruit that grows in the same strata of Jurassic limestone—though there are clearly technical and philosophical parallels too.