Winemaker Notes
The handpicked grapes were gently pressed and the juice was racked to stainless steel tanks, where it underwent natural fermentation. The wine was then moved to French oak barrels (25% new) for malolactic fermentation. It was aged in barrel for 12 months, with periodic lees stirring and then racked to tank where it rested for two months before a light filtration and bottling. Only eight barrels are produced of this premier cru wine.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Saint Aubin 1er Cru Charmois certainly has a more nuanced bouquet compared to the Saint Aubin Les Combes this year. This makes you work a little bit, eking out those scents of granite and apple blossom. For sure it is unashamedly more austere than the Les Combes but very nicely focused. The palate is rounded on the entry with a brush of honey. There is a pleasant sense of energy here just on the back palate, almost like the aftertaste from Shezchuan pepper, the mouth tingling with spiciness. It completes what I find to be an intriguing Saint-Aubin, but I would afford it a couple of years in bottle.
Range: 89-91 -
Wine Spectator
Though lithe and marked by a vibrant structure, this is nicely integrated, featuring butterscotch, toast, vanilla, peach and lemon notes. Finishes with a chalky feel on the gums. Drink now through 2024.
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.