Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
An aromatic white Burgundy with plenty of candied citrus plus notes of fresh butter, smoked bacon and flint. For this appellation it has quite serious structure, with restrained creaminess, acidity and healthy tannins all beautifully integrated. Quite a zesty finish that pulls you back for more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Bourgogne Blanc opens in the glass with a pretty and youthfully expressive bouquet of crisp green orchard fruit, white flowers and hazelnuts. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, satiny and incisive, with a bright spine of acidity that structures the wine's generous core of fruit. Raphaël Coche opted to supplement grapes from the domaine's holdings with some purchased fruit this year, and the resulting wine is very fine indeed.
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.
The most acclaimed region of Burgundy, the Côte d’Or is defined by a long, limestone escarpment beneath the ground's surface and is home to all of Burgundy’s most famous wines. While Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are produced throughout the Côte d’Or, the north tends to excel at Pinot Noir and the south, at Chardonnay.
The northern half of the Côte d’Or is called the Côte de Nuits. Here reside most of the Pinot noir Grands Crus vineyards of Burgundy—the only one farther south, in Côte de Beaune, is Aloxe-Corton.
The Côte de Beaune is the center all of the Chardonnay Grands Crus with the exception of Le Musingy, found in Chambolle-Musigny in the Côte de Nuits, which produces both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with Grand Cru status.