Winemaker Notes
The 1er Cru Chardonnays are barrel fermented and aged in French oak barrels (10%-30% new). The wine spends between 12 and 18 months in wood with regular lees stirring for added texture. Says Bernard, "The spirit of our winemaking is to not touch the wine too often. For Chardonnay our aim is to produce very clean and precise wines which are not too austere. We like the minerality and purity."
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Alex Moreau's parcel of Les Vergers faces easy and sits on limestone-rich soils in the northern part of the village close to St. Aubin. This is a wonderful expression of the Premier Cru, aged in 20% new wood and combining understated power with chalky minerality, notes of vanilla spice and dessicated coconut and a long, mineral-fresh finish. Zippy and focused.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With a finished pH of 3.19, the 2018 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Vergers is one of the raciest wines in the cellar. Exhibiting scents of almond paste, citrus oil and crisp green orchard fruit, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and chiseled, with a textural attack and lovely mid-palate volume, concluding with a long and precise finish.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
Jasper Morris
A clean pale yellow colour. The bouquet is a little riper than the first two wines in the flight. Plenty of flesh on the palate, peaches rinsed with citrus, medium length.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
A Côte de Beaune village of Burgundy most famous for its beautifully textured and powerful whites, Chassagne-Montrachet reaches farthest south in the Côte d’Or, save for the village of Santenay. It has three Grands Crus vineyards: Le Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. Le Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet overlap with and are (confusingly) shared with the village of Puligny-Montrachet. But Chassagne-Montrachet bears sole ownership of the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru.
The beauty doesn’t stop there as the village has a great many outstanding Premiers Crus wines and village level wines. Most famous Premiers Crus vineyards include Les Chenevottes, Clos de la Maltroie, En Cailleret and Les Ruchottes. Also, village level wines offer many lovely examples of what Chassagne-Montrachet has to offer, but at more approachable price points and perhaps less demand of waiting.
The best sites in Chassagne-Montrachet have complex soils of sedimentary rock and limestone (with less marl). Whites, which are by law composed of 100% Chardonnay (as in all classified white Burgundy from Côte d’Or), have steely power, bright and concentrated citrus, stone or tropical fruit characteristics and attractive textures ranging from plush to tactile, grippy and mineral-driven.
There is some fine Pinot Noir produced from the village. These wines tend to be high-toned and earthy, with wild herb aromas and suave tannins.