Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Bonnes Mares is totally classy and elegant. It shows gorgeous inner liqueur-like sweetness, expressive aromatics and a rich, textured finish that is a marvel to behold. The sheer depth, density and incisiveness of the fruit is fabulous. Expressive floral notes round out the finish. This is very much an understated Bonnes Mares from de Vogue. Anticipated maturity: 2023-2048.
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James Suckling
Quite dense and saturated with impenetrable tannins that house plenty of red and dark berry fruit flavours; the makings of a great wine are all here. From 2020.
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.”
The origin of perhaps the world’s very finest Pinot Noir, Côte de Nuits is the northern half of the Côte d'Or and includes the famous wine villages of Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, Vosne-Romanée, Flagey-Echezeaux and Nuits-St-Georges.
Fine whites from Chardonnay are certainly found in the Côte de Nuits, but with much less frequency than top-performing reds made of Pinot noir. The little village of Nuits-St-Georges in its southern end gave the region its name: Côte de Nuits. The city of Dijon marks its northern border.