Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Jasper Morris
Pretty mid purple, very lively deeply perfumed nose, bouncing up and down in its enjoyment of floral, roses and peonies, plus lively fresh raspberry notes, excellent length, gracious and vivacious, and keeps coming back for more at the finish.
Barrel Sample: 95-97 -
Decanter
From 0.76ha in Loächausses next to her cousin, Bernard Gros, who had a sharecropping contract for 25 years. Destemmed and gently fermented before ageing over two winters in cask (30% new) to produce a wine with an expressive, sweet black fruit nose, scented with liquorice and smoke. The texture on the palate is dense and luxurious, with a supple tannic structure that still supports the fruit through an impressively lingering 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.”
Claiming the two famous Grand Crus, Echezeaux and Grands Echezeaux, the identity of this village, Flagey-Echezeaux, rides predominantly on the glory of those two crus. All of the village or Premier Cru status vineyards in Flagey-Echezeaux market themselves under the name of their neighbor, Vosne-Romanée.
Echezeaux Pinot noir tends be light, bright and full of finesse, whereas those of Grands Echezeaux typically have more heft and complexity.