Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Perfumed and expressive, this charming white exudes peach, lemon cake, citronella, seashore and baking spice flavors. Vibrant, smooth and balanced, with a lingering toasty, nutty aftertaste. Drink now through 2025.
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Jasper Morris
Pale lemon and lime colour, a little fresh gunflint reduction, certainly aiming in that direction. The smoky style holds on, while slightly fleshier white fruit dominates the palate. Acidity is present too: this wine is rather disjointed at the moment but the persistence indicates promise for the future.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos Saint-Marc (Récolte du Domaine) is showing very well, mingling aromas of crisp orchard fruit and white flowers with hints of almond paste, vanilla pod and freshly baked bread. Medium to full-bodied, elegantly textural and charming, with lively acids and a saline finish, it's a worthy follow-up to the fine 2017 rendition.
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 Côte de Beaune village of Burgundy most famous for its beautifully textured and powerful whites, Chassagne-Montrachet reaches farthest south in the Côte d’Or, save for the village of Santenay. It has three Grands Crus vineyards: Le Montrachet, Bâtard-Montrachet and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet. Le Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet overlap with and are (confusingly) shared with the village of Puligny-Montrachet. But Chassagne-Montrachet bears sole ownership of the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru.
The beauty doesn’t stop there as the village has a great many outstanding Premiers Crus wines and village level wines. Most famous Premiers Crus vineyards include Les Chenevottes, Clos de la Maltroie, En Cailleret and Les Ruchottes. Also, village level wines offer many lovely examples of what Chassagne-Montrachet has to offer, but at more approachable price points and perhaps less demand of waiting.
The best sites in Chassagne-Montrachet have complex soils of sedimentary rock and limestone (with less marl). Whites, which are by law composed of 100% Chardonnay (as in all classified white Burgundy from Côte d’Or), have steely power, bright and concentrated citrus, stone or tropical fruit characteristics and attractive textures ranging from plush to tactile, grippy and mineral-driven.
There is some fine Pinot Noir produced from the village. These wines tend to be high-toned and earthy, with wild herb aromas and suave tannins.