Winemaker Notes
This deeply colored wine shows subtle aromas of violets and spices, and round, firm flavors on the palate, with quite powerful tannins. This is a wine to age, and will improve in the bottle for 15 to 20 years.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There are two barrels of the brilliant 2020 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses (Domaine Louis Jadot), an arresting wine that bursts from the glass with aromas of rose petals, orange rind, cherries, red berries, sweet spices and musk. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and enveloping, it's fine-boned and elegant, with a deep core of fruit and a long, perfumed finish. It's one of the finest wines in the cellar this year.
Barrel Sample: 94-96 -
Decanter
The wine is remarkable for its purity of fruit and finesse, with aromas of ripe mulberry, rose petals and mint. The texture is approachable and velvety, as dense as it should be, but neither soft nor lacking tannin. A marvellous success. From 0.12ha of vines located right below its parcel of Musigny, Amoureuses is one of the few vineyards where Jadot experiments with whole-cluster fermentation, using one-third here before ageing in cask (half new).
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.”
Chambolle-Musigny represents the charm of the Côte de Nuits district of Burgundy. But you’ll find that term mainly in reference to the vineyards in its southern stretches, which border Clos Vougeot: the Grand Cru of Le Musingy and in part, its neighboring and most exceptional Premier Cru, Les Amoureuses. Some producers argue for the primacy of Les Amoureuses and its eligibility for Grand Cru status given its wines can sometimes surpass other Grands Crus.
Le Musigny ranks on par with the most acclaimed Grands Crus for Pinot Noir: Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Richebourg, Chambertin, and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. It is also the only Grand Cru in Côte de Nuits for Chardonnay. All of the others are in Côte de Beaune.
This village can in fact claim only two Grands Crus vineyards and—in the context of breaking down the minutiae—they are markedly different. Bonnes-Mares, the other one at the far northern end above the village, bordering Morey-St-Denis, offers power, strength and great aging potential. But Chambolle-Musigny includes a nice handful of exceptional Premiers Crus, as noted above with Les Amoureuses as the finest. Le Fuees and Les Cras are other noteworthy Premiers Crus.
Overall, a top Chambolle-Musigny offers pure aromas of violets, dark cherry and damp earth, coupled with a velvety elegance, supple mid-palate, an abundance of black and red berry, and finesse and power through a long and fine-grained finish.