Winemaker Notes
The Chambertin Clos de Bèze displays an intense purple color with aromas of small red fruits and liquorice, offering a majestic and expressive bouquet. On the palate, it is balanced, clear, and rich, with melted, spicy, and precise tannins that provide roundness and a light, elegant finish accented by a hint of rose. This wine benefits from aging and pairs beautifully with rabbit in mustard sauce, moussaka, or ripened cheeses such as Morbier.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
20% whole bunch vinification and 80% new wood, plus some green harvesting. A fresh mid purple colour, with a lick of new wood that cannot stop the energy of the fruit from bursting through. Exceptionally juicy with raspberry and alpine strawberries, backed by the perfect level of acidity and refined tannins. This is seamless, delicious! Drink from 2028-2036.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Decanter
This wine shows restraint and elegance, and yet everything is in the right place. The impression begins with ripe mulberry fruit aromas accented with notes of smoke, leather, and earth, yet there is no rustic edge. It is a robust wine, surprisingly deeply coloured for the vintage, boasting full body, plenty of tannic grip, and impressive density and length. It is produced from the domaine's outstanding 1.5-hectare parcel in the centre of the vineyard, running from top to bottom. 20% of the grapes are fermented as whole clusters, and the wine is currently ageing in cask (mostly new).
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Vinous
The 2021 Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru has noticeable menthol scents on the nose, not as strong as some of the other '21s in the tasting, yet it lurks behind the attractive red berry fruit and briar scents. The palate is ripe and sweet on the entry with that menthol note becoming more prominent. Fine definition, a little chewy and spicy towards the finish. It just misses a bit of grace and elegance, though that might well manifest with bottle age, during which I hope it dispenses with that incongruous menthol aroma.
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.”
This small village is home to the Grands Crus in the farthest northerly stretches of Côte de Nuits and is famous for some of the deepest and firmest Burgundian Pinot Noir.
Gevrey boasts nine Grands Crus, the best of which are arguably Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. As with all of the fragmented vineyards of Burgundy, it isn’t easy to differentiate between the two, which are situated adjacent with Clos de Bèze slightly further up the hill than Le Chambertin. Clos de Bèze has a shallower soil and if you’re really counting, may produce wines less intense but more likely to charm. Some compare Le Chambertin in both power and plentitude only to the prized Romanée-Conti Grand Cru farther south in Vosne-Romanée.
Two other Grands Crus vineyards, Mazis-Chambertin (also written Mazy-) and Latricières-Chambertin command almost as much regard as Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. The upper part of Mazy, called Les Mazis Haut is the best and Latricières-Chambertin offers an abundance of juicy fruit and a silky texture in the warmer vintages.
Other Grands Crus are Ruchottes-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazoyères-Chambertin, Griotte-Chambertin and Chapelle-Chambertin.
The most respected Pinot Noir wines from Gevrey-Chambertin are robust and powerful but at the same time, velvety and expressive: black fruit, black liquorice and chocolate come into play. After some time in the bottle, the wines are harmonious with bright and sometimes candied fruit, and aromas of musk, truffle and forest floor. These have staying power.