Winemaker Notes
It is a complex wine with a deep color and great length in the mouth. The aromatic palette is very rich and delicate with a dominant of blackberries and spices.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2020 Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru has an even more complex bouquet than the Chambertin - a quite profound, quite riveting cornucopia of red berry fruit, sous-bois and crushed stone all delivered with breathtaking delineation. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grain tannins, perhaps more saline than the Chambertin, wonderful acidity with real depth and structure towards the finish that already feels extremely persistent. Potential wine of the vintage, right here.
Barrel Sample: 98-100 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru is a rich, sensual wine that bursts from the glass with aromas of blackberries, loamy soil, smoked meats, exotic spices, rose petals, orange rind and black truffles. Full-bodied, multidimensional and fleshy, it's broad and concentrated, with a more generous, muscular profile than the precise, tightly wound Chambertin. Which will ultimately emerge superior is anyone's guess, but the Clos de Bèze is obviously more forward at this early juncture.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
Jasper Morris
A fresh medium dark crimson purple. Quite a lot of new oak on the nose, perhaps understandable at this level. It is not going to dry out the fruit, which is much more red berries than black. Very backward yet with really significant potential. As the fruit develops so the oak recedes.
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.