Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Corton Les Perrieres comes across as quite firm, tannic and unyielding. This is all about pure length and minerality. Dark red and black fruit notes struggle to emerge with air, but the wine’s energy is so massively implosive that it is hard to get a great read at this stage. Still, it is impossible to miss the focus and sheer verve of what is in the glass. There certainly appears to be the potential for the Perrieres to develop into a splendid wine. It is already pretty terrific, if not fully formed. Anticipated maturity: 2025-2045. Jean-Nicolas Meo was away on the day of my visit, so I tasted with assistant winemaker Peer Reiss. The harvest started on September 22 and took about ten days to complete. Overall, I am a big fan of the 2010s here. Although I did not get a chance to taste the 2009s from bottle, my notes suggest 2010 will turn out to be the more interesting vintage. The Meo-Camuzet negociant wines are reviewed separately.
Range: 91-93
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.”
A classic source of exceptional Chardonnay as well as Pinot Noir, the Côte de Beaune makes up the southern half of the Côte d’Or. Its principal wine-producing villages are Pernand-Vergelesses, Aloxe-Corton, Beaune, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.
The area is named for its own important town of Beaune, which is essentially the center of the Burgundy wine business and where many negociants center their work. Hospices de Beaune, the annual wine auction, is based here as well.