Cote de Beaune Wines

wines

Enjoyed over dinner in Burgundy after tasting many truly lovely wines, this wine could erase your memory of anything else. It is a riveting tour-de-force, with a medium lemon-yellow colour and heady, incredibly forward aromas of ripe orchard and stone fruit with exotic spices, butter, and a bit of oak. There is fresh acidity, plenty of body and extract, and incredible finesse and elegance as well. The combination of youthful fruit, fresh acidity, and robust density carry this wine to an interminable finish.Decanter | 100 DECThe 2014 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru is a wine that leaves you lost for words - never helpful in this profession. It begs the question: Why are not all Corton-Charlemagnes like this? It has a stunning bouquet with a profound mix of yellow plum, Mirabelle, Seville orange marmalade, those liquid minerals and later, scents of cold wet limestone. The palate is incredibly powerful with stunning acidity. There are multiple layers of spice-tinged citrus fruit, just a faint tinge of marzipan, wondrous umami sensation in the mouth with grilled walnut and a hint of pralines towards the finish. This represents an astonishing Corton-Charlemagne that might end up touching the imperious 2005. Readers should note that Raphael told me that the release of this will be delayed, just like the 2005 and 2010. Put it on your wish list and wait.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 99 RPThe 2014 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru was the first time I had tasted the wine in bottle after first sampling it at the domaine. It is more open than expected and displays less reduction than the 2005 tasted alongside, offering penetrating citrus peel, lanolin, crushed limestone and fragrant yellow flower scents. The palate is beautifully balanced with razor-sharp acidity and an extraordinarily saline, praline-tinged finish that electrifies the senses. It flirted with perfection in 2016 and it is still within a whisker now. Tasted at Otto’s restaurant in London.Vinous Media | 99 VMA still somewhat reticent nose grudingly speaks of discreet wood, smoky mineral reduction, petrol, green apple, white rose and spice elements. In the same vein as the nose, the dense and well-muscled broad-shouldered flavors are still moderately tightly wound while delivering an abundance of minerality on the massively persistent, highly complex and perfectly well-balanced finish that is quite dry yet not especially austere. This is sufficiently backward at present to need continued cellaring even though with say 30 or so minutes of air in a decanter, it could be approached. With that qualification duly noted, I would strongly advised holding this unicorn of a wine for another 5ish years. In a word, OK, two, absolutely brilliant.Burghound | 98 BH

Bright and expressive, featuring cherry, blackberry, smoke, sandalwood, earth and vanilla flavors. Vibrant and elegant, though firm on the finish now, offering finesse and terrific length. Best from 2025 through 2042. 60 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 94 WS

The 2020 Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières 1er Cru has a straightforward bouquet: orchard fruit and Granny Smith apples with just a touch of petrichor. It’s not complex, but it has more typicité than some of its brethren (even if it needs to shake off some reduction that actually becomes more evident with aeration). The palate is well-balanced with plenty of concentration, real weight and heft in the mouth, citrus peel mixed with lanolin and a hint of fennel. Spicy towards the finish, this lingers long in the mouth. Power and tenderness combined. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.Vinous Media | 95 VMFresh in colour, a lifted perfumed floral nose, on the sharper side. Then some bacon fat as well as lemon balm. Not quite sure what to make of this. No faulting the intensity, but it is not quite harmonious today. Drink from 2025-2030. Tasted May 2024.Jasper Morris | 92 JM

Though lower down on the map, this is above the fault line, so still classic. Clear pale lemon and lime, quite a complex bouquet with the white fruit rising up through the light citrus notes. Excellent concentration behind as the finish fattens out somewhat. Very promising. Tasted Jan 2021.Jasper Morris | 92-95 JM

The 2020 Meursault Les Tillets opens with notes of crisp green apple, freshly baked bread, white flowers and crushed mint. Medium-bodied, satiny and elegant, it’s lively and precise, with a pretty core of fruit and a mouthwatering finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 90 RPThis too is quite firmly reduced and unreadable today. More interesting are the delicate but punchy flavors that evidence plenty of minerality on the vibrant, focused and beautifully well-balanced finale. Once again, more depth would be beneficial, but this wine has an excellent track record in that regard. Worth checking out.Burghound | 89-91 BH

From the upper part. More sensual perfume here despite the altitude. Fuller white fruit with salinity, tis sufficiently ripe but with a fresh edge. Quite nuanced at the back and with good persistence. Drink from 2025-2030.Jasper Morris | 90-92 JM

This is aromatically similar to the straight Puligny villages but noticeably spicier. The plump, round and suave medium weight flavors possess fine volume and solid finishing punch on the sneaky long finish that is shaped by lemon-tinged acidity. This well-made effort isn’t quite as complex but that may well change with a few years of cellaring.Burghound | 89-91 BHMid yellow colour, more floral from the riper fruit. Protected by its walls. Deeply juicy, plenty of fruit weight, yellow plums with ripe lemon, good length. As always more on the exotic side. Drink from 2025-2028. Tasted Oct 2022.Jasper Morris | 88-90 JM

Bottled in late July. Pale lemon colour. A pure and fresh bouquet, mostly white fruit. Particularly stony this year behind a raft of white apple fruit, plenty of energy, starting to soften at the back. Middleweight plus, quite attractive. Tasted Oct 2023.Jasper Morris | 92 JM

Fine lemon and lime colour. The bouquet is very alluring and signals a yellow fruit style. Guillaume thinks the plant material is earlier ripening here than in Vergers. The fruit is sunny, the finish remains all lemons and limes. Tasted Oct 2023.Jasper Morris | 91-93 JMThe 2022 Chassagne-Montrachet Les Chenevottes 1er Cru has an impressive sense of delineation and poise on the nose, yellow fruit commingling with sea spray and linseed aromas, and a touch of chai tea. The palate is well-balanced with a fine line of acidity, taut and fresh with subtle stem ginger notes towards the Meursault-like finish. Good potential.Vinous Media | 90-92 VM

The 2022 Puligny-Montrachet Les Levrons has a very fine bouquet with real tension. A slight reduction is well-played (apparently, it comes from the clay-limestone soils). The palate is well-balanced with impressive depth and grip, a subtle nutty/fumé element, and quite a persistent finish. Not one to be ignored, but I would give it 3-4 years in bottle.Vinous Media | 91-93 VMEarly picking here. Pale in colour. An attractive bouquet with spring flowers. Plenty of energy on the palate, a lime thread running through the middle, elegant and fairly long. In fact, the fruit keeps coming back. Fine-boned. Tasted Oct 2023.Jasper Morris | 90-92 JM

Complex smoky and nutty character, excellent concentration with a wonderful mineral acidity that keeps this very bright through the long, multilayered finish. No hint of anything exotic or overly ripe in spite of the ample depth.James Suckling | 96 JS

This almost perfectly interweaves vanilla oak with a wide spectrum of citrus and stone fruit aromas in a way that’s totally compelling, and this is most striking on the front palate. Then comes a golden richness on the very concentrated mid-palate, followed by a huge wave of chalky minerality. Incredibly long, focused aftertaste. Drinkable now, but best from 2025.James Suckling | 99 JS

This delightful wine is among the liveliest of the vintage from village-level Meursault. They boast a bright lemon peel and nectarine fruit with hints of white flowers, smoke, and an undercurrent of salty minerality. The texture is clean and fresh, with the acidity carrying the wine to a lingering finish. The grapes are from the older vines in the lieu-dit Perchots, just north of En La Barre. The combination of old vines and used casks has produced a wine of great purity of fruit.Decanter Magazine | 93 DEC

Aromas of honeyed orchard fruits, buttery pastry, peaches, toasted nuts and spices introduce the 2022 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeot Marquis de Laguiche, a medium to full-bodied, ample and satiny wine that’s rich, glossy and unctuous, with all the fat and texture typical of this bottling.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 92-94 RPPicked between 2nd and 5th September. A very pretty clean lemon and lime. The oak is very well integrated into the classy nose. Plenty of energy but also light on its feet for Morgeot without betraying the appellation, and the fruit persists particularly well on the palate. Drink from 2030-2037. Tasted Nov 2023.Jasper Morris | 92-95 JMThe 2022 Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 1er Cru (Marquis de Laguiche), picked September 2 to 5, has a delineated bouquet with apple blossom, peach skin and light honeysuckle aromas that bloom in the glass. The palate is well-balanced with good substance and a better acidic spine than the preceding Meursault Genevrières. There is commendable weight and depth on the finish. Drink over the next 12 to 15 years.Vinous Media | 91-93 VMThis is also quite floral in style with its aromas of petrol, white orchard fruit and discreet hint of rosemary oil, all of which is trimmed in much more subtle wood treatment. There is more volume and power to the bigger-bodied flavors that are rich to the point of opulence while delivering fine length. This isn’t refined but it doesn’t lack for body and character.Burghound | 91-93 BH

A standout this year is the 2022 Chassagne-Montrachet Les Chênes, a medium to full-bodied, satiny and seamless wine evocative of pear, fresh mint, white flowers and hazelnuts. Lively and concentrated, it concludes with a saline finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 91 RPThe soil is clay-limestone with sand. Enough crop to make separately. Pale colour, just a little more oak, a slightly sappy green note to it. Tense and dense, but as yet rather ungiving. I think this should unwind later on and should be a long keeper.Jasper Morris | 90 JM

This bottling includes the younger Haute Densité planting, as well as the old vines from 1946 and 1970. Overall half is at normal spacing and half at double. The marly soil here remains cool, and does not keep the water. Very stylish in bouquet, ripe yet with precision. A greener touch behind with crystalline acidity. Drink from 2027-2034. Tasted Nov 2024.Jasper Morris | 93 JMThe 2022 Puligny-Montrachet Les Tremblots includes the younger vines in the high-density section of the vineyard. It has a crisp, well-defined nose with petrichor and oyster shell scents, the latter becoming stronger with aeration. The palate is well balanced and mineral-driven, with that oyster shell element defining the finish. This is excellent.Vinous Media | 91 VMThe 2022 Puligny-Montrachet Les Tremblots includes the young vines from Lamy’s high density plantings (at 20,000 vines per hectare) to the tune of some 50%. Offering up a gently reductive bouquet of pear, bread dough and white flowers, it’s medium-bodied, taut and electric out of the gates.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 90+ RPA cooler and not quite as ripe nose reflects notes of green apple, spice, acacia blossom and lemon confit. There is good vibrancy to the noticeably finer medium weight flavors that exhibit excellent length on the bone-dry and youthfully austere finale. This is already complex though it’s sufficiently tightly wound to need at least a few years of patience.Burghound | 90 BH

Powerful and refined at the same time, it’s an age-worthy wine that’s already tempting to drink. Generous apple, white peach and lime aromas give way to stony, flinty and tight flavors backed by nervy acidity that will need time to unravel. One of the truly great sites for chardonnay in the Cote d’Or, and this comes from 50-year-old vines. Best from 2028.James Suckling | 97 JSA rich, supple white, with great balance and expression, delivering peach, lemon, mineral and spice flavors allied to a bone-dry, chalky structure that reflects greater austerity on the finish for now. Shows superb harmony and length. Best from 2025 through 2036. 100 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 96 WSThe 2022 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru (Domaine) derives from vines in Languettes, a south-facing climat that produces a ripe style of wine. Delivering aromas of sweet yellow orchard fruit, confit citrus and buttery pastry, it’s medium to full-bodied, rich and ample, with a layered, seamless profile.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 92-94 RPFrom domaine fruit, picked on 26th August. 35% new wood from various forests. A deeper lemon yellow. Plenty of tension on the nose, with a breadth of apple fruit. A slight reductive quality before the oak takes over. A little youthful bitterness. I don’t find it showing at its best today but I suspect that there is more to this to emerge later. Drink from 2030-2038. Tasted Nov 2023.Jasper Morris | 92-96 JMThis is the first wine to display any appreciable reduction and in this case, it dominates the underlying fruit. More interesting are the generously proportioned larger-scaled flavors that brim with both dry extract and minerality while displaying impressive power on the compact, long, balanced and built-to-age finale. While this could be enjoyed on the younger side thanks to the excellent richness, there is so much upside development potential that it would be a shame to drink it too young.Burghound | 91-94 BH

Tasting note not provided | 96 DEC

Here the nose is relatively firmly reduced to if you’re going to crack a bottle young, be sure to give it some air first. Otherwise, there is both excellent freshness and verve suffusing the sleek, detailed and beautifully textured medium-bodied flavors that brim with sappy dry extract that buffers the moderately firm acid spine shaping the bitter lemon-inflected and bone-dry finish. This is very compact at present and a wine that definitely needs at least a few years of patience.Burghound | 92 BH

Though delineated by its vibrant acidity, this white shows some weight, with a creamy texture enveloping flavors of vanilla, buttery croissant, lime blossoms and hazelnut. Lithe and persistent on the finish, where the notes of lime blossoms carry over, with accents of citronella and baking spices. Drink now through 2032. 2,310 cases made, 462 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 96 WSThis emblematic premier cru is a lovely introduction to Domaine Leflaive, with hints of passionfruit, pomelo, coconut milk, spice and smoke. The texture is lush with extract, but there is enough acidity to bring everything into balance. Although this 2022 doesn’t show the same intensity or concentration of the other premier cru wines, the combination of ripe fruit and smoky reductive notes make it a tempting wine for mid-term cellaring.Decanter Magazine | 94 DECThe 2022 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clavoillon unwinds in the glass with a gently reductive bouquet of pear, sweet citrus zest, wet stones and wheat toast. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and racy, it’s bright and saline, with a long, penetrating finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPThere is just enough reduction to push the fruit to the background though a whiff of floral character can be discerned. On the palate there is both more volume and concentration to the beautifully textured middleweight flavors that are also appealingly vibrant and particularly so on the complex, balanced and impressively long finale. This is notably better than it usually is and a wine that should amply repay a decade or so of keeping.Burghound | 92-94 BHLight lemon colour. Attractively floral, then a similar little wash of line. This is light on its feet, has the required density without an especial weight, with a pleasing length of finish. Drink from 2028-2035. Tasted Apr 2024.Jasper Morris | 92 JMThe 2022 Puligny-Montrachet Clavaillon 1er Cru is much more backward and rocky on the nose; sea spray and crustacea come through with aeration. The palate is fresh and malic, with plenty of energy. It is a little spicy towards the finish with a persistent peppery aftertaste. The palate was more expressive on the day that I tasted it, though it seemed just a couple of paces behind Leflaive’s other Premier Crus. Cellar for two or three years.Vinous Media | 91 VM