Winemaker Notes
Deep red in color, Gevrey-Chambertin Les Cazetiers offers aromas of black fruits and spices. A complex wine that is very mouth-filling with silky tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Rich glowing purple. There is significant intensity to the ebullient raspberry fruit, ripe but retaining freshness. There is a brilliant intensity to this wine, a huge volume which surges across the palate, without losing minerality, though there is a chocolate note at the finish.
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Decanter
The result here is more black fruit than red, with a pronounced mineral character and a subtle hint of rose petals. Exotic and lovely, the feel on the palate is nonetheless massive and structured. Clair explains that his 0.87ha of Cazetiers is next to the wall of the Clos St-Jacques in very solid marl over a former limestone quarry. The old vines produce small grapes, with the bunches affected by millerandage. As Clair remarks: 'It's difficult to mess up a Cazetiers'.
Barrel Sample: 93 -
Vinous
The 2020 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Cazetiers 1er Cru has an attractive bouquet. This is some clever use of whole bunches. Black pepper mixes with red berry fruit and briar. There's fine delineation, and it becomes more floral with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with firm tannins. This is a structured Cazetiers, linear in style, conservative perhaps, but there is a class here, and I appreciate its aloofness. Maybe a little dry on 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.”
This small village is home to the Grands Crus in the farthest northerly stretches of Côte de Nuits and is famous for some of the deepest and firmest Burgundian Pinot Noir.
Gevrey boasts nine Grands Crus, the best of which are arguably Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. As with all of the fragmented vineyards of Burgundy, it isn’t easy to differentiate between the two, which are situated adjacent with Clos de Bèze slightly further up the hill than Le Chambertin. Clos de Bèze has a shallower soil and if you’re really counting, may produce wines less intense but more likely to charm. Some compare Le Chambertin in both power and plentitude only to the prized Romanée-Conti Grand Cru farther south in Vosne-Romanée.
Two other Grands Crus vineyards, Mazis-Chambertin (also written Mazy-) and Latricières-Chambertin command almost as much regard as Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. The upper part of Mazy, called Les Mazis Haut is the best and Latricières-Chambertin offers an abundance of juicy fruit and a silky texture in the warmer vintages.
Other Grands Crus are Ruchottes-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazoyères-Chambertin, Griotte-Chambertin and Chapelle-Chambertin.
The most respected Pinot Noir wines from Gevrey-Chambertin are robust and powerful but at the same time, velvety and expressive: black fruit, black liquorice and chocolate come into play. After some time in the bottle, the wines are harmonious with bright and sometimes candied fruit, and aromas of musk, truffle and forest floor. These have staying power.