Winemaker Notes
Pronounced minerality and appealing citrus, raw almond and green apple notes. Well-balanced with a bright acidity, there is an underlying essence of butter on the fine, mineral cut finish. To be served at 10-12°C. Ageing potential: 6-8 years.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a perfumed, citrusy expression of village-level Chassagne-Montrachet packed with pert, juicy green-apple and Meyer-lemon flavors. While matured in 25% new oak, the fruit-focused wine balances its smokier, spicier intonations well alongside a bristling salty finish. Lovely young, the wine should maintain peak through 2027. Cape Classics. Editors’ Choice.
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Wine Spectator
A plush, smooth white, featuring aromas and flavors of lime blossom, peach, baking spices and toasty oak. This is so harmonious now that it's tempting to pull the cork, yet this should improve over the next three to five years. Drink now through 2027.
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.