Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru has a ripe redcurrant and cranberry-scented bouquet that is full and voluminous. The palate is ripe and sweet with a candied core of strawberry fruit and a long succulent finish. This is a quintessential Charmes-Chambertin in the making, harmonious and poised. Range: 92-94
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Wine & Spirits
Of the range of Lucien Le Moine wines we tasted for this issue, this offers the greatest potential for longevity. Blended from a combination of parcels in Charmes and Mazoyères, this captures the grandeur of a grand cru Chambertin while adding a sweet strawberry lilt. The wine may start out deep and seductive in its new oak scent, but it is the fruit that lasts, gracious, glinting with freshness, a light foot on the pedal for a long road ahead.
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Wine Spectator
Black cherry and blackberry fruit is supported by dense tannins. Overall, this is charming and harmonious, with baking spice and black pepper accents. Excellent finish. Best from 2019 through 2035.
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.