Winemaker Notes
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
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Chorey-lès-Beaune Village is blended with the fruit from La Pièce du Chapitre this year due to a lack of quantity. It has a ravishing, forward and expressive bouquet with plenty of raspberry coulis and blueberry notes, very pure and nicely defined. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins. There is a fine bead of acidity, almost candied toward the finish with veins of orange zest and spice lingering in the mouth. This comes highly recommended.
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Wine Spectator
Pretty aromas and flavors of cherry jam, raspberry, violet and earth are backed by dusty tannins in this red, which is focused, if dominated by the tannins for now. Fine length. Drink now through 2027.
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 source of some of the most delightful Pinot Noir in Beaune, Chorey-les-Beaune is a great place to start exploring red Burgundies that do not command a great deal of cellar time. In style, they are akin to the reds of Aloxe-Corton but more fruit forward and approachable in their youth.