Winemaker Notes
Intense bouquet with aromas of red and black fruit, spices and a touch a oak. Rich and structured on the palate, this wine needs a bit of patience in order to reveal its raciness and great distinction. Excellent ageing potential
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Rich, featuring juicy cherry, plum and smoky oak aromas and flavors. The vibrant structure keeps this fresh and drives the long aftertaste, where a graphite element emerges. Shows excellent balance and complexity. Best from 2022 through 2040.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Corton is one of the most elegant of the appellations in the Côte de Beaune, and the 2017 Bouchard Père & Fils is what it is supposed to be. TASTING NOTES: This wine bright, lively, and lasting. Its aromas and flavors of zesty red fruits should pair it well with grilled salmon. (Tasted: March 14, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
-
James Suckling
The aromas are briary and fragrant, offering plenty of red flowers and red berries. The power here is also impressive and there’s a very regal air to the tannins. Long and fine, very transparent and delicate. The exposure and altitude here gives good and slow ripening to high maturity. Try from 2023.
Barrel Sample: 92-93 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Le Corton Grand Cru is showing very well, and I evidently underestimated it when I tasted it earlier this year. Opening in the glass with aromas of sweet berries, cloves, smoked meats and coniferous forest floor, it's medium to full-bodied, ample and fleshy, with a textural and enveloping attack, a sapid core of fruit and a savory finish. Today, the wine's tannins are already supple and melting.
-
Jasper Morris
Mid red, not quite clear. The bouquet is a little smudged and suggests some whole bunch. Much denser texture than expected, full ripe dark fruit, leavened by a thread of fresher red fruit notes. Some power to this but the character is not yet fully formed. Not quite the precision I would like but with considerable density.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Prevailing over the charming village of Aloxe, the hill of Corton actually commands the entire appellation. Corton is the only Grand Cru for Pinot Noir in the entire Côte de Beaune. Its Grand Crus red wines can be described simply as “Corton” or Corton hyphenated with other names. These vineyards cover the southeast face of the hill of Corton where soils are rich in red chalk, clay and marl.
Dense and austere when young, the best Corton Pinot Noir will peak in complexity and flavor after about a decade, offering some of the best rewards in cellaring among Côte de Beaune reds. Pommard and Volnay offer similar potential.
The great whites of the village are made within Corton-Charlemagne, a cooler, narrow band of vineyards at the top of the hill that descends west towards the village of Pernand-Vergelesses. Here the thin and white stony soils produce Chardonnay of exceptional character, power and finesse. A minimum of five years in bottle is suggested but some can be amazing long after. Fully half of Aloxe-Corton is considered Grand Cru.