Winemaker Notes
This wine is bursting with aromas of rainier cherry laced with violets and red berries. The palate is explosive, with an expressive core of lush red fruit, orange zest and red currant. This Burgundy effortlessly harmonizes sumptuous fruit with a crisp, fresh minerality.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
The Bachelet brothers have 6.5 hectares in total on the south-facing slopes of premier cru La Fussière. There is about a hectare of recently replanted vines, and the rest is 50 years of age or older, planted on thin soils over limestone. These deliver a wine that has plenty of black fruit and notes of liquorice on the nose. But notable, above all, are its firm tannic grip and concentration. Perhaps the finest terroir in Maranges.
-
Jasper Morris
If you don’t know or don’t rate Maranges, this wine is the wake-up call. The Bachelet-Monnot 2019 1er Cru La Fussière is really concentrated, with masterful intensity in all senses, but still with elegance. Perfectly ripe deep cherry-raspberry fruit with a long finish, fuller-bodied than ever in the past and without the trenchant acidity that used to be a feature sometimes.
Barrel Sample: 90-93 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Maranges 1er Cru La Fussière opens in the glass with notes of peonies, cherries, wild berries and spices. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and precise, with lively acids, fine tannins and a perfumed, mouthwateringly saline finish, it's a real success. This cuvée has grown, as the Bachelet brothers have acquired more parcels in this stony climat.
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.”
Forming a transition between the Côte d’Or and the Saône-et-Loire of the Côte Chalonnaise, Maranges is the southernmost village of the Côte de Beaune district of Burgundy and includes seven Premiers Crus. Wines grown in Maranges may claim the names of their respective communes, Cheilly-lès-Maranges, Dezize-lès-Maranges or Sampigny-lès-Maranges, or Côte de Beaune-Villages. Confusingly they may also be called Maranges or Maranges Côte de Beaune. Nevertheless, the village’s vineyards, primarily composed of limestone and pebbly soils, produce charming, medium-bodied, fleshy Pinot Noir, laden with red or purple fruit and a touch of spice. A small percentage of admirable and fresh whites come from Maranges, made of Chardonnay.