Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
Rewardingly ripe, with creamy apricot fruit on the nose and hints of butter and hazelnut. The texture balances a very pleasant ripeness and plump texture with refreshingly crisp acidity to create a persistent, lingering finish. The domaine owns a half-hectare above Chevalier that was spared the worst damage from the frost – this yielded 26 hl/ha and produced a wine of precision with well-defined fruit flavours and good complexity.
-
Jasper Morris
6 barrels made from half a hectare. Clean mid yellow. Slightly more personality than the Perrières, with a more lifted bouquet. This is much more complete on the palate too, a classic white fruit with lemony high notes, well balanced, fills the palate from start to finish, through to a pleasing and classic finale. Enough fruit, plus the stones of St-Aubin. Drink from 2025-2030.
Barrel Sample: 91-93 -
Vinous
The 2021 Saint-Aubin Les Murgers des Dents de Chien 1er Cru has a slightly richer nose than its peers with just a nod towards tropical fruit and a little lanolin. The palate is cut in a bigger style, more like a Chassagne perhaps, a little creamy in texture but with attractive grilled walnut and black pepper notes that enhance the well-defined finish. Good potential.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
A steep, upcountry basin (referred to as a combe in French) in the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, St. Aubin is a direct westerly neighbor to Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet. Recent years have seen a boom in white wine production so that now Chardonnay accounts for more than three quarters of area under vine here. Two thirds of St. Aubin is classified Premier Cru (30 total vineyards); most notable include Les Charmois, La Chatenière, En Remilly and Les Murgers Dents de Chie. The Premiers Crus of St. Aubin, wrapping like a ribbon upon the southeast and southwest facing slopes, produce fresh and elegant whites from Chardonnay. When young, these tout a refreshing grip and convey qualities of white flowers, citrus, pear, green almond and wet stone. Given some age, a graceful evolution occurs so that older St. Aubin whites express richer aromas of beeswax, honey, marzipan and spice.