Winemaker Notes
Lovely aromas and flavors of black plums, raspberries and a hint of garrigue, supported by 50% new oak. Already delicious, this will improve for another decade if you can resist it. This would be ideal with a garlic roasted leg of lamb, coq a vin, or just rare slices of roast beef.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Beaune 1er Cru Cuvée du Cinquantenaire offers up a pretty bouquet of delicately earthy red berry fruit, plums, raw cocoa, peonies and cinnamon. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, supple and succulent, with understated depth at the core, tangy acids and powdery tannins, concluding with an impressively structured finish for the appellation and the vintage. While it's sufficiently charming to be approached now, it will show very well after five or six years in the cellar. As usual, it's a blend of five premiers crus: Pertuisots, Montée Rouge, Les Bressandes, Clos du Roi and Reversées.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: When one can discover a Beaune Premier Cru as good as the 2017 Domaine de Bellene Cuvée du Cinquantenaire Vieilles Vignes, it is a lovely moment. TASTING NOTES: This is pure Pinot Noir pleasure. Pair is aromas and flavors of red fruits and dried leaves with a slowly baked, crispy-skin chicken. (Tasted: April 29, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.”
While the city represents the epicenter of wine production in Burgundy, the term, “Beaune” also refers to the specific sub-appellation of the greater Côte de Beaune, whose vineyards climb up the pastoral slopes that border the city to its west. Originally founded as a Roman camp by Julius Caesar, the city of Beaune eventually became the seat of the dukes of Burgundy until the 13th century. Today it is home to top négociants such as Louis Jadot, Joseph Drouhin, Louis Latour, and Bouchard Père et Fils.
The appellation, dominated by Pinot Noir plantings, represents a lovely and charming place to begin to understand red Burgundy. Its sandy soils create light and supple, floral driven Pinot Noir. These wines are designed to be enjoyed within five to 10 years. The vineyards of Beaune span a broad swath of Premier Crus from Savigny-lès-Beaune to its border with Pommard.
Chardonnay acreage here has been increasing here in the more recent years.