Winemaker Notes
To the eye, a color rich in color, crimson, then taking with age a deeper ruby, up to purple. On the nose, the bouquet opens with a basket of small red and black fruits (strawberry, cherry, blackcurrant, blueberry), evolving on cooked prune, on peppery, animal and undergrowth nuances, on moss and on the mushroom. Bourgogne rouge is very lively on the palate, structured, with a supple and round back.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Well-located close to the Chapelle-Chambertin grand cru, this is a single parcel of 20-year-old vines that was picked comparatively late in 2017. It has an appealing combination of texture, fruit sweetness and acidity, with no stems or new wood.
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.”
The origin of perhaps the world’s very finest Pinot Noir, Côte de Nuits is the northern half of the Côte d'Or and includes the famous wine villages of Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, Vosne-Romanée, Flagey-Echezeaux and Nuits-St-Georges.
Fine whites from Chardonnay are certainly found in the Côte de Nuits, but with much less frequency than top-performing reds made of Pinot noir. The little village of Nuits-St-Georges in its southern end gave the region its name: Côte de Nuits. The city of Dijon marks its northern border.