Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
The Grands-Echézeaux is a very serious wine indeed in 2014, opening in the glass with an inviting bouquet of red cherry, cedary new oak, dark spice and incipient pot pourri. On the palate the wine is rich, sappy and intense, with ripe tannins beautifully enrobed in cool, crystalline fruit and a lovely combination of power and grace. This should unfold considerable complexity with time in the cellar, and the wine’s depth and the integration of its tannins mark it out as a particular success this year. Harvested on 23 and 24 September. William Kelley: Superb nose of raspberry, cherry, spices and savoury notes with a wonderful silky texture and a vibrant black fruit finish. An amazing wine that is already tasting so well so young.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Grands Echézeaux Grand Cru was picked on 23 and 24 September at 32.5 hectoliters per hectare. Slightly deeper in color compared to the 2014 Echézeaux, it is undeniably a tangible step up in intensity and complexity, offering disarming raspberry, crushed strawberry, and crushed limestone that almost verges on flintiness. It has beguiling purity and focus. The palate is medium-bodied with a noticeably grippy entry. It has a strong saline seam, structured but not a dense Grands Echézeaux. It gently fans out on the finish with pretty, mineral-soaked red fruit, although the aftertaste is not as prolonged as some of the greatest vintages I have tasted from this esteemed vineyard. Nevertheless, it remains a supremely gifted wine that will bestow two, possibly three decades of drinking pleasure. Tasted February 2017.
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.”
Claiming the two famous Grand Crus, Echezeaux and Grands Echezeaux, the identity of this village, Flagey-Echezeaux, rides predominantly on the glory of those two crus. All of the village or Premier Cru status vineyards in Flagey-Echezeaux market themselves under the name of their neighbor, Vosne-Romanée.
Echezeaux Pinot noir tends be light, bright and full of finesse, whereas those of Grands Echezeaux typically have more heft and complexity.