Producer · Burgundy, France

Benoit Ente

Benoît Ente is based in Puligny-Montrachet, the white wine village between Meursault and Chassagne, and his brother is Arnaud Ente, who makes wine in Meursault. He is a small grower who keeps a low profile, which in Burgundy usually means a domaine that sells what it makes without any need to advertise.

His Aligoté tells you a lot about how he works. It comes from three parcels: two planted by his grandfather in 1949 and 1953, and a third that Benoît planted himself in 2002. The vines are pruned by cordon de Royat, which is a deliberate decision to hold the yield down. Aligoté will crop heavily if you let it, and most Aligoté is allowed to, which is why most of it is cheap. The family's oldest Chardonnay parcel was planted by massal selection rather than with clones, and it reached its fiftieth birthday in 2011.

Wine from old vines planted by a grandfather, kept deliberately low-yielding and bottled under an appellation most people ignore, is exactly the kind of thing I want on the shelf. Aligoté from that sort of material is a genuinely different drink from the sharp, thin version the grape has a reputation for.

Winery at Puligny-Montrachet, Burgundy · Aligote and Chardonnay · £69.95 to £99.95 a bottle