Winemaker Notes
Serve with sophisticated dishes such as game and sauced meats.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Quite structured and well laced with velvety tannins, the wine offers enticing cedar, cinnamon and cherry aromas. Bright red cherries, cranberries and raspberries on the palate are wrapped in very fine-grained tannins on a medium body. Gets more open and generous as you sip. Drink or hold.
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Jasper Morris
Quite pale in colour, not abnormal for Estournelles. The bouquet is quite delicate but the fruit in the mouth is properly refined. This is a wine that creeps up on you rather than impresses at first sight.
Barrel Sample: (91-93)
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Wine Spectator
Rose and violet aromas add to the perfume of this graceful red, along with flavors of raspberry, cherry and earth. Assertive tannins take over as the subtle fruit and floral notes play out on the finish. Best from 2029 through 2045. 30 cases imported.
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Vinous
The 2022 Gevrey-Chambertin Estournelles Saint-Jacques 1er Cru has an open, very flattering bouquet with maraschino cherries, orange liqueur and touches of inkwell. Maybe flirting with over-ripeness…but I don't feel it is actually over-ripe. The palate is composed on the entry with a fine bead of acidity. It’s a little fresher than intimated by the aromatics, with commendable tension on the finish. I suspect that it will continue to improve during the élevage.
Barrel Sample: 90-92
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.”
This small village is home to the Grands Crus in the farthest northerly stretches of Côte de Nuits and is famous for some of the deepest and firmest Burgundian Pinot Noir.
Gevrey boasts nine Grands Crus, the best of which are arguably Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. As with all of the fragmented vineyards of Burgundy, it isn’t easy to differentiate between the two, which are situated adjacent with Clos de Bèze slightly further up the hill than Le Chambertin. Clos de Bèze has a shallower soil and if you’re really counting, may produce wines less intense but more likely to charm. Some compare Le Chambertin in both power and plentitude only to the prized Romanée-Conti Grand Cru farther south in Vosne-Romanée.
Two other Grands Crus vineyards, Mazis-Chambertin (also written Mazy-) and Latricières-Chambertin command almost as much regard as Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. The upper part of Mazy, called Les Mazis Haut is the best and Latricières-Chambertin offers an abundance of juicy fruit and a silky texture in the warmer vintages.
Other Grands Crus are Ruchottes-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazoyères-Chambertin, Griotte-Chambertin and Chapelle-Chambertin.
The most respected Pinot Noir wines from Gevrey-Chambertin are robust and powerful but at the same time, velvety and expressive: black fruit, black liquorice and chocolate come into play. After some time in the bottle, the wines are harmonious with bright and sometimes candied fruit, and aromas of musk, truffle and forest floor. These have staying power.