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.
Ideal pairings include venison, game birds, or full-flavored cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Poised with elegance, the wine has seductive layers of black cherry and oak spice. Pulverized black-pepper spice lands on the front of the palate and leads into a finish of fresh black cherries, mushroom and soil. The wine is sophisticated and refined.
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James Suckling
There's nothing shy about this uncompromising expression of the 2020 vintage. Dark, meaty and peppery on the expansive nose, this Corton has imposing structure, but has been beautifully crafted. So well proportioned, in spite of its mighty stature. The crushed-stone minerality builds and builds to a serious crescendo at the finish. From organically grown grapes. Drinkable now, but best from 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Le Corton Grand Cru is a worthy successor to the striking 2019 (which I probably underrated last year). Soaring from the glass with aromas of rose petals, orange rind, raspberries, rich soil tones and cinnamon, it's full-bodied, velvety and seamless, with a deep and layered core of fruit, vibrant acids and fine, melting tannins, concluding with a long, saline finish. This emblematic cuvée has always been a solid bottling chez Bouchard, but in the last few years it seems to have attained a whole new level of quality. When I asked Frédéric Weber what might account for this shift, he explained that he picks later and includes more whole bunches in the vinification. Whatever the reason, readers are advised to take note, as I don't think the market has yet factored in quite how good this wine is.
Barrel Sample: (93-95)+ -
Wine Spectator
Shows aromatic sandalwood, floral, cherry and exotic spices on the nose, with intense cherry and berry fruit on the palate. This has serious grip, despite the acidity and tannins meshing harmoniously with the flavors and supple texture. Offers fine length, with the fruit and spice notes persisting.
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Decanter
This magnificent parcel is 3.55ha in a long strip below the wood of Corton and above Clos du Roi and Renards, right on the limestone. The grapes are one-third fermented as whole clusters and then aged in 25% new casks to produce a very aromatic nose with expressive red and black fruits, floral notes, pepper and spice. On the palate the wine is tightly wound, with firm tannins but lots of finesse and a fine acidity that carries this to an impressive finish.
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Jasper Morris
A slightly lighter purple than most of the Cortons. An immediate sense of whole bunch vinification, crushed strawberries and spice. Very perfumed, and immensely enjoyable in this riper style with the pepper and spice providing a valuable counterpoint to the ripeness of the fruit. Excellent persistence.
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Vinous
The 2020 Le Corton Grand Cru has an open-knit bouquet, possibly with some stem addition, slightly tertiary red fruit with a light loamy element that emerges with time in the glass. This has real complexity and terroir expression. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-boned tannins and dark berry fruit laced with tea leaf and black pepper, exhibiting more grip than some of its peers towards the finish.
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.