Winemaker Notes
Excellent ageing potential. Pairs well with venison, game birds, full-flavoured cheeses.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
The chalky and stony notes are intermingled with pastry and red to dark cherries, all leading to a palate that shows good acidity, impressive depth and weight of tannins. A cool vintage expression with more intensity at the finish. This will age very well.
Range: 94-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Corton Grand Cru comes from red clay soils that are just 80 centimeters deep before you hit the limestone bedrock. It has a finely tuned bouquet with cranberry, raspberry preserve and crushed strawberry scents, crushed roses developing with time. The palate is well balanced with a fine line of acidity, brisk and tensile from start to finish and then pulling back so as not to overdo the finish. This is a case of less is more in a wine and it is likely to surpass the 2015 Corton.
Barrel Sample: 91-93
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.”
A classic source of exceptional Chardonnay as well as Pinot Noir, the Côte de Beaune makes up the southern half of the Côte d’Or. Its principal wine-producing villages are Pernand-Vergelesses, Aloxe-Corton, Beaune, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.
The area is named for its own important town of Beaune, which is essentially the center of the Burgundy wine business and where many negociants center their work. Hospices de Beaune, the annual wine auction, is based here as well.