Winemaker Notes
This wine is “Grands” before being Échézeaux. It is a country gentleman, aristocrat and dreamer, who idles willingly with the unhurried step of his horse in a forest filled with the scents of sundry mushrooms, mosses, decaying leaves and of furtive small game, which spill forth in a multitude of shifting alliances. All of that is expressed with feeling, in a refined language: musical, concise and pure like the message of a Mozart quartet.
Professional Ratings
-
Jasper Morris
The colour is a little denser, a little richer than the Echezeaux. The bouquet is more backward, yet more complex. It is hard to put specific fruits to this. Increasing weight on the nose, all red berry, no black notes. The wealth of fruit attacks quickly and then stays, with fresh roses jostling among the lush but still quite precise fruit flavours. The structure maintains its role and helps to keep this powerful wine fresh. The volume now swells magically on the second half of the palate, with darker notes.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru is more reserved than the Échézeaux, even if it's far from forbidding. Mingling aromas of blackberries and raspberries with notions of exotic spices, orange rind, smoked duck and forest floor, it's full-bodied, rich and concentrated, with broad structural shoulders supplied by ripe, powdery tannins. Layered and muscular, it's remarkably seamless and integrated at this early stage, concluding with a long, sapid finish.
-
Decanter
Slightly paler than the Echézeaux, this is more delineated and precise on the nose. A thought-provoking wine with a mineral quality throughout. There is a wonderful balance between the ripeness of dark fruit, a touch of spice and palate-cleansing acidity. It builds in the mouth, with an underlying core of dark minerality and precise, ripe tannins – there is promise of greatness to come with further ageing. Production was equivalent to 10,608 bottles, with a yield of 28hl/ha.
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.