Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with game, venison, and full-flavored cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
This was picked on the same day as the Chapelle-Chambertin but is less obviously ultra-ripe. The plot involved here is close to the forest where there is more soil and the site is cooler. It is concentrated but with some elegance, while on the palate, the terroir shows through. Succulent but balanced.
Barrel Sample: 94-97 -
James Suckling
Plum, orange-peel and dried-meat aromas follow through to a full body, yet it’s so tight and polished with long, persistent tannins that give the wine wonderful depth and character. Still tightly wound. Give this until after 2023 to show it all.
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Wine Spectator
Flavors of black cherry, black currant, earth and spice are draped onto the elegant frame of this red. Its structure lends grip on the compact finish, while the oak is pretty dominant now.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Bouchard Père & Fils Chambertin Chambertin-Clos de Bèze offers powerful black fruits. It's aromas and flavors that stay long on the palate. Enjoy it with grilled beef. (Tasted: March 3, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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.