Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Light lemon yellow. Here the nose is powerful, sturdy even, but backward. This has a marvellous backbone with a fruit quality which is over and above the others. The 2020 La Chatenière is a wine of great depth, less chiselled than some of the higher altitude locations, but entirely in balance and with exceptional persistence.
Barrel Sample: 92-95 -
Vinous
The 2020 Saint-Aubin La Chatenière 1er Cru comes from the parcel at the top of the climat, the one that Damien Colin opined has improved the most since the domaine was divided with his brother. It has a vibrant, very focused sea-spray-scented bouquet, bashful at first but soon losing its inhibitions. The palate is supremely focused with real concentration, and spicier than Colin’s other Saint-Aubin Premiers, leading to a sapid finish. Everything you could really wish for.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Saint-Aubin 1er Cru La Chatenière is especially good this year. Revealing scents of citrus oil, pear, confit lemon, beeswax, freshly baked bread and smoke, it's medium to full-bodied, chiseled and concentrated, with a satiny attack and a long, mineral finish.
Barrel Sample: (92-94)+
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.
A steep, upcountry basin (referred to as a combe in French) in the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, St. Aubin is a direct westerly neighbor to Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet. Recent years have seen a boom in white wine production so that now Chardonnay accounts for more than three quarters of area under vine here. Two thirds of St. Aubin is classified Premier Cru (30 total vineyards); most notable include Les Charmois, La Chatenière, En Remilly and Les Murgers Dents de Chie. The Premiers Crus of St. Aubin, wrapping like a ribbon upon the southeast and southwest facing slopes, produce fresh and elegant whites from Chardonnay. When young, these tout a refreshing grip and convey qualities of white flowers, citrus, pear, green almond and wet stone. Given some age, a graceful evolution occurs so that older St. Aubin whites express richer aromas of beeswax, honey, marzipan and spice.