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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Wine Spectator
Very pure, exhibiting black cherry, black currant, violet, earth and black pepper aromas and flavors, this red is solidly built, with toasty oak and wood spice elements emerging on the long finish. Best from 2022 through 2042.
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Decanter
The Bressandes reveals a warmer and less wild bouquet of creamy red fruit, anise and liquorice, compared to the Corton. This is followed on the palate by a fuller-bodied, more voluminous wine in a more expansive register, its taut structural tannins more immediately cloaked in fruit. Drinking Window 2026 - 2045
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Matured in one-third new oak, the 2016 Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru was unaffected by frost this vintage. There was some reduction on the nose when I tasted this from barrel. Bypassing the aromatics, the palate has good density and body, the new oak a little elevated as the fruit was closing down, but there is a fine line of acidity and a lovely, spicy finish that feels long and persistent. Maybe the Le Corton has a little more precision? Still, this is very fine, if just a little “bigger boned” than its sibling.
Barrel Sample: 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.”
Prevailing over the charming village of Aloxe, the hill of Corton actually commands the entire appellation. Corton is the only Grand Cru for Pinot Noir in the entire Côte de Beaune. Its Grand Crus red wines can be described simply as “Corton” or Corton hyphenated with other names. These vineyards cover the southeast face of the hill of Corton where soils are rich in red chalk, clay and marl.
Dense and austere when young, the best Corton Pinot Noir will peak in complexity and flavor after about a decade, offering some of the best rewards in cellaring among Côte de Beaune reds. Pommard and Volnay offer similar potential.
The great whites of the village are made within Corton-Charlemagne, a cooler, narrow band of vineyards at the top of the hill that descends west towards the village of Pernand-Vergelesses. Here the thin and white stony soils produce Chardonnay of exceptional character, power and finesse. A minimum of five years in bottle is suggested but some can be amazing long after. Fully half of Aloxe-Corton is considered Grand Cru.