Winemaker Notes
Enticing aromas of toast, spice, tropical fruit and flint shift to citrus and roasted nut notes on the focused and clean palate. Flavors are supported by an invigorating acidity that balances the seamlessly integrated oak influence, which closes in a clear-cut, lingering finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Dustings of smoked nut and resin accent ripe honeydew and Mirabelle plum in this rich, silky white. The creamy, mouthclinging Chardonnay is balanced brilliantly by lemon-lime acidity and a kiss of vanilla that lingers on the finish. Gorgeous and vital now, the wine should drink well through 2030. Cape Classics. Editors’ Choice
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Wine & Spirits
From a parcel of 40-year-old vines to the south of the premier cru Les Chaumées (also recommended here), this Chassagne is packed with the kind of youthful energy that will mature into complexity with age. For now, the fruit feels cool, like oranges and tangerines stored in an underground cellar. The structure is warmer, sappy and broad. This should prove exciting to drink as it integrates and develops over the coming years.
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Wine Spectator
Though almost creamy, there’s a racy feel to this white, with the brisk structure defining its peach, lemon cake, vanilla and pastry flavors. This is long, expanding with peach, lemon and toasty spice elements on the finish
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.