On a white wine sipping trip in sunny Burgundy

The tiny town of PulignyMontrachet in Burgundy is the place to sample some of the world's best white wines as well as go wine biking

- Ruma Singh

The greatest white wine commune on earth." So did Clive Coates MW describe the 230-hectare commune of Puligny-Montrachet in Burgundy. Winemakers able to make wine on this slice of land, a heartbeat away from Beaune, Burgundy's wine capital, regard themselves as inheritors of a rare legacy. And so it is with Olivier Leflaive, a name widely recognized in the region.

The story began when Olivier Leflaive, scion of the multi-generational Leflaive wine family, returned to Burgundy after a stint in Paris to join the family business at Domaine Leflaive. In 1984, he decided to set up an eponymous négociant (merchant) house, Maison Olivier Leflaive and buy-in grapes from other select vineyards even as he developed his own. Today, his wines represent 82 different Burgundy climats or land parcels, and over 100 hectares of vines, including 26 of his own, concentrated around Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet and Meursault. The focus is on whites.

Though officially retired, Olivier Leflaive remains very much connected to the business, making surprise appearances to interact with visitors to his cellars, much to their delight. The maison opened a 4-star boutique hotel in 2007, the Olivier Leflaive Hotel, run by his daughter Julie. Housed within a 17th-century building overlooking the peaceful town square, the hotel forms the star attraction for visitors to the tiny town of Puligny-Montrachet, population 400. Puligny-Montrachet is a 12-minute drive from Beaune, the wine capital of Burgundy. The Leflaive wines are served at the hotel's pair of restaurants—the fine-dining Restaurant Klima helmed by Chef Lionel Freitas, and the more relaxed casual Bistro de l'Olivier that abuts a gleaming marble-topped green and gold Art Deco style bar.