Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This is always among my favourite Chevaliers, with its super-concentrated style. The aromas tend more toward fresh apricot than apple, with ample shading of saline mineral notes, floral aromas, a bit of spice (from the 40% new casks used for maturation), and a touch of cream and butter. The texture is powerful, dense and long. Not to be missed!
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Jasper Morris
Picked on 24th August at13.5% alcohol. There is a really racy tension here on the nose, strict white fruit, then the concentration really kicks in, perfect crisp white fruit, a sense of licking the limestone, all the weight necessary, and not too much overt power. Exactly how Chevalier-Montrachet should be.
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 source of some of the finest, juicy, silky and elegantly floral Chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet lies just to the north of Chassagne-Montrachet, a village with which it shares two of its Grands Crus vineyards: Le Montrachet itself and Bâtard-Montrachet. Its other two, which it owns in their entirety, are Chevalier-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet. And still, some of the finest white Burgundy wines come from the prized Premiers Crus vineyards of Puligny-Montrachet. To name a few, Les Pucelles, Le Clavoillon, Les Perrières, Les Referts and Les Combettes, as well as the rest, lie northeast and up slope from the Grands Crus.
Farther to the southeast are village level whites and the hamlet of Blagny where Pinot Noir grows best and has achieved Premier Cru status.