Winemaker Notes
"Champs Pennebaut" brings the richness and country-style aspect of Fixin, whereas "Champs des Charmes" provides lots of fruitiness and elegance. The blend of grapes from these two vine plots gives a well-structured, fruity wine with a lovely ripeness of tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
80% whole bunch vinification, as he has done since 2015, because of the tiny berries he gets from his Fixin vines. 5-10% new wood. Dense bright red purple. The bouquet is a little more solid, and the fruit shows more strawberry than raspberry. A little bit firmer in its tannins yet with good weight all around.
Barrel Sample: 89-92
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aromas of cherries, sweet berries, spices and forest floor introduce the 2021 Fixin Vieilles Vignes, a medium to full-bodied, textural and layered wine that's firmer and more structured than Mortet's Marsannay, but which possesses excellent potential.
Barrel Sample: 89-91
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.”
Inhabiting the northern reaches of the Côte de Nuits of Burgundy, the Pinot Noir vineyards of Fixin abut Gevrey-Chambertin and produce wines of similar character. The appellation is full of well-reputed Premier Crus that offer some very fine Pinot Noir, even if not quite delivering the exact precision and elegance—nor price tag—of a Gevrey-Chambertin Grand Cru. These are Les Arvelets and Les Hervelets, Clos de la Perrière, Clos Napoléon and Clos du Chapître. A classic Pinot Noir from Fixin will be rich in dark fruit, underbrush and exhibit good structure and minerality.