Winemaker Notes
With a bright and pale yellow color, Corton-Charlemagne 2015 displays a complex nose of almonds, vanilla and smoky notes. A full wine that is very powerful with almond flavors, honey and vanilla. Very beautiful length for this exceptional wine.
Pair with shellfish, lobster, foie gras, fish and mature cheese.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
So perfumed with exotic, tropical-fruit aromas that draw you into the glass. Full-bodied, layered and textured with soft creamy tannins and light stone and walnut undertones. Gun flint. Always a fantastic white. So constant. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
A flagship wine for this producer, this is rich and seductive, opulent even. Bold yellow fruits, ripe apples and pears are surrounded by a youthful texture that will allow it to age. The fruit and the touches of wood are still present, but will integrate beautfully. Drink this wine from 2023.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Vanilla, clove and toast notes shade the core flavors of apple, melon and stone in this rangy white. Balanced in a broad-shouldered way, this offers echoes of mineral and spice on the long finish. Best from 2020 through 2033. 3,400 cases made.
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.