Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted blind at the Burgundy 2011 horizontal tasting in Beaune. The Chambertin Clos de Bèze 2011 from Bouchard seems more introspective on the nose: cranberry, wild strawberry, a hint of tomato vine and woodland aromas. It takes some coaxing from the glass, eventually offering hints of Seville orange. The palate is full-bodied and dense. There is a lot of fruit intensity here with bold tannins and good depth, but unlike the Clos-de-Bèze from Rousseau it does not own the same level of precision and comes across a little aggressive by comparison. Still, time mellows us all.
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.”
The origin of perhaps the world’s very finest Pinot Noir, Côte de Nuits is the northern half of the Côte d'Or and includes the famous wine villages of Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, Vosne-Romanée, Flagey-Echezeaux and Nuits-St-Georges.
Fine whites from Chardonnay are certainly found in the Côte de Nuits, but with much less frequency than top-performing reds made of Pinot noir. The little village of Nuits-St-Georges in its southern end gave the region its name: Côte de Nuits. The city of Dijon marks its northern border.