Winemaker Notes
Beautifully aromatic, pure and fresh with bright cherry, plum, and red berry fruit aromas alongside a hint of herb and spice. On the palate, the flavors mirror the aromas, with vibrant cherry fruit and silky tannins. It is a very supple wine with a lot of finesse and elegance.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2020 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru has a mixture of red and black fruit, beautifully delineated, hints of blood orange and crushed stone percolating through with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, perfectly judged acidity, slightly granular in texture towards the finish that displays commendable weight and length. Again, there is just the right sapidity on the finish. Superb.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru offers up aromas of cherries, red berries, raw cocoa, sweet soil tones and warm spices. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and nicely concentrated, it's seamless and elegant, with powdery tannins, lively acids and a penetrating finish. It's a terrific follow-up to the excellent 2019.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
Jasper Morris
More crimson than purple. A little reductive on the nose. More in the brawny style with a certain funkiness, which is probably not bacterial. Plenty of weight on the palate, and length. Maybe a bit funky for some.
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.