Winemaker Notes
The wine shows aromas and flavors of red berries, herbs, and purple flowers. The palate is rich with ripe fruit and medium weight with bright acidity and fine tannins. Aging in 40-70% new Burgundian pièce brings notes of vanilla, toast, and baking spices.
Red Burgundy might be the world’s most flexible food wine. The wine’s high acidity, medium body, medium alcohol, and low tannins make it very food-friendly. Red Burgundy, with its earthy and sometimes gamey character, is a classic partner to roasted game birds, grilled duck breast, and dishes that feature mushrooms, black truffles, or are rich in umami.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
This 0.85ha holding of vines in the lieu-dit Cruots, next to Comte Liger-Belair, was planted in 1954. This prime site yields fruit of complexity and depth, delivering rich blackberry fruit, exotic spice, smoke and mineral notes. The wine is firm without being hard, with finely-textured tannins, substantial extract and a lingering, subtle finish.
-
Jasper Morris
A deep dark crimson. The bouquet is rather heavy handed. There is quite a concentration of rather raw fruit on the palate. This is a relatively muscular expression of Echezeaux, then freshened up by the vivacity of the finish. There could be a bacterial hint here, but for most people not at a level which will cause an issue. There is a beautiful persistence to the finish.
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.