Winemaker Notes
The Corton Grand Cru Clos des Maréchaudes features well-balanced notes of vanilla and toast on the nose with nuances of raspberry. Starts off very round, rich and powerful, a harmonious combination of richness and the finesse of the terroir. The tannins are dense, mature and round. Very nice volume and length on the palate.
Serve with red meats and game, dishes prepared with wine, and delicate cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Bright full purple. Clearly a little deeper in colour than the 1er Cru version, which was planted with the same vine material in the same year, and more concentrated in red fruit bouquet. The palate is more savage, the acidity is much more present along with the tannins. The rock is much closer to the surface here. A muscular wine, which needs to be picked early.
Range: 92-95 -
Decanter
This 0.54ha in the grand cru portion of the vineyard has yielded a wine of greater concentration than from the top of the terrace, where there is a bit more clay. There is an appreciable increase in quality - more density, more structure, more length and more depth to the fruit character. Impressive.
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.