Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Very attractive wet stones and a wealth of hazelnuts and ripe, fresh and expressive lemons and white peaches. The palate has beautifully complete, fleshy texture, really seamless and underpinned by stony, powerful terroir-driven structure. Exceptional Corton-Charlemagne here. Drink or hold.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru is excellent, unwinding in the glass with aromas of sweet citrus oil, beeswax, white flowers and oyster shell. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, layered and satiny on the attack, with considerable concentration and structuring dry extract, succulent underlying acids and a long, chalky finish. From the south-facing climat Les Languettes, this is one of the highlights of Drouhin's 2017 portfolio.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Decanter
The Drouhins' parcel is entirely located in the climat of Les Languettes in Aloxe-Corton. It's a rich, ripe, well-upholstered style with considerable power and intensity, spicy, honeyed flavours, some leesy weight and deftly handled 30% new wood.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
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.