Winemaker Notes
'Croix Violette' is a small plot surrounded by a stone wall, neighboring an active cloister (the Violet Cross) in the village of Brochon. True to its name, fruit here is purple, regal, refined, very juicy, and spiced. A classic Pinot Noir with poise and elegance.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 Frédéric Magnien Côte de Nuits-Villages Croix-Violette brings a classic, Old World style to the fore. TASTING NOTES: This wine shows rustic aromas and flavors of chalk and dried earth. Pair it with a roast chicken salad mixed with fresh garden greens. (Tasted: September 15, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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.