Winemaker Notes
Les Combes harmonizes delicacy and richness with of flavors of white peach, apricot, pear, and toasted vanilla on both the nose and palate. Lustrous and radiant, a beautiful oak integration results in a trace of butter and a pronounced nuttiness on the stunning finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Just north, across the line from the premier cru vineyards of Chassagne, Le Combes rises to higher elevations, where Colin grows this substantial white. The scent carries a little buttered toast while the fruit has a tangy Mandarin orange and tangerine note. A cut of acidity lifts that ripeness, restraining the sappy richness, finishing clean and inviting, a Burgundy with open arms.
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.