Winemaker Notes
Wine for laying down, but can be appreciated when young after carafing for several hours before serving.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
One of the highlights of the tasting, the 1999 Chambertin Grand Cru is a deep and resonant wine that unfurls in the glass with aromas of dark berries, wild berries, rose petals, orange zest and burning embers. If the 1997 and 1998 impress in the context of more challenging years, the 1999 nonetheless reveals another dimension of density and plenitude, its fleshy attack segueing into a layered and enveloping mid-palate that's seamless and complete, concluding with a resonant finish.
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.