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  • Country ranking ?

    463
  • Producer ranking ?

    67
  • Decanting time

    2h
  • When to drink

    from 2020
  • Food Pairing

    Seafood dishes & roasted fish and cod dishes

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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96 points Allen Meadows - Burghound

 A whiff of post-bottling reduction does little to detract from the strikingly well-layered and ever-so-mildly exotic fruit, white flower and softly wooded nose. The super-rich and full-bodied yet beautifully delineated flavors possess a borderline painful intensity along with a taut muscularity before culminating a focused, tightly wound and powerful finale that really fans out as it sits on the palate. Moreover this markedly dry but not really austere effort is what I describe as sneaky long because just as the finish appears to be dying away it suddenly come back and plays hide and seek with your palate. Like most vintages of the Domaine's Montrachet this is undeniably built-to-age but unlike some of them the 2013 rendition is not likely to drink particularly well before the age of at least 10 and should reward somewhere between 15 and 20.  (7/2015) 

95 points Vinous

 Pale yellow. Sexy noble reduction to the musky aromas of lemon zest, flinty minerals, iodine and ginger. Pliant and thick but with buns of steel; powerful acidity and strong salinity frame and intensify the sappy flavors of lemon, grapefruit and iodiney minerality. In the ripest years, this wine can get a bit exotic but this 2013 is classic Montrachet. Wonderfully palate-staining finish. (ST)  (3/2016)

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The Story

The Montrachet family consists of grand five Grands Crus grown in the two villages of Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. These two share the Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet appellations. Chevalier and Bienvenues belong to Puligny, Criots belongs to Chassagne. These Grands Crus are the most southerly of the Côte-d'Or, and lie between Meursault in the north and Santenay in the south. Their origins go back to the Middle Ages - the work of the Cistercian abbey of Maizières and the Lords of Chagny. The wines of Montrachet (pronounced Mon-rachay) came fully into their own in the 17th century. There is no argument : this is the finest expression of the Chardonnay grape anywhere on earth. The Grand Cru appellations date from 31 July, 1937.

 

The underlying rocks date from the Jurassic, 175 million years BC. Exposures lie to the east and the south. Altitudes: 265-290 metres (Chevalier) ; 250-270 metres (Montrachet) ; 240-250 metres (Bâtard, Bienvenues, Criots). In the " Climat " of Montrachet, the soils are thinnish and lie on hard limestone traversed by a band of reddish marl. In Chevalier, the soils are thin and stony rendzinas derived from marls and marly-limestones. In the Bâtard " climat " soils are brown limestone which are deeper and, at the foot of the slope, more clayey. 

 

The power and aromatic persistence of these lofty wines demands aristocratic and sophisticated dishes with complex textures : « pâté » made from fattened goose liver, of course, and caviar. Lobster, crawfish, and large wild prawns, with their powerful flavours and firm textures, pay well-deserved homage to the wine and match its opulence. Firm-fleshed white fish such as monkfish would be equally at home in their company. And let us not forget well-bred and well-fattened free-range poultry whose delicate flesh, with the addition of a cream-and-mushroom sauce, will be lapped up in the unctuous and noble texture of this wine. Even a simple piece of veal, fried or in sauce, would be raised to heavenly heights by the Montrachet's long and subtle acidity.

Serving temperature : 12 to 14 °C.

 


 

 

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Vintage 2013

HARVEST REPORT 2013 RED BURGUNDY

As far as weather was concerned, 2013 was not your typical year. It was at times cool, then hot with severe storms, followed by heavy rains hailstorms and then dry times with some occasional warm periods. It is a vintage that growers are calling the ultimate terroir vintage. Whenever you have a vintage that is not over ripe or alcoholic, or under ripe and very acid, the terroir can show through. This is not a vintage that lacked fruit or acidity or charm, it had all three, but it did not have a lot of power or concentration. This was true for many, and especially those who went for more production, or panicked and harvested too early resulting in the lowest sugars since 2008.

The average temperatures for the first 3 months of the year were 5.4oF cooler than normal. Temps were normal in April; May temps were below normal resulting in a very late flowering – the last time flowering took place that late was in 2008. May was also rainy, 34% above normal rainfall levels. It was rainy in June as well which resulted in uneven flowering with shatter and a bad fruit set. This trend (of bad and uneven fruit set) has been going on since 2010 with 2012 having a particularly poor fruit set.

In July the weather became warmer with periods or rain and a devastating hailstorm on July 23rd. Hardest hit were the communes of Pernand, Savigny les Beaune, Beaune, Pommard Volnay and Meursault. Some of the appellations were so badly hit that 100% of their crop was lost, this was particularly the case in Volnay and Pommard. Some of the same appellations were also hit in 2014 making it 4 years in a row with significant hail damage. The fact that this hailstorm came late in the vegetative cycle caused the wine to have a very dry harsh edge which covered up what little fruit there was to begin with.

The amount of sunlight hours was very low in the first 3 months of the year, 30% below normal. However, in July the amount of sunlight was plus 20 in July and August when it counted most. It did not get really hot during the normal summer months of July and August. There were 8 days in July that hit 86oF and above and only 3 in August with the latter half of the month quite cool. As far as rain was concerned, there was nothing more then a trace from August 1st to the 24th, and then nothing much again until September 9th when 1.02 inches fell. There were periods of rain after the 24th, but nothing serious enough to cause any problems with rot.

The fact that it was cool during the month of August prevented any recurrence of mildew and odium which were problems in early July. The cool weather, plus the late flowering, meant that veraison occurred on August 15th and harvest did not begin until the last week of September. Growers harvested in October for the first time in years – not since 2008. The quality of the fruit was far superior in the Côtes de Nuits, as has been the case for many years, other than in the truly great years where all regions were successful. The fact that full flowering was between June 23rd and the 26th made for a later harvest but possibly one of the reasons that the soils were so expressive in the juice.

I was very surprised at the quality of the 2013’s – the fact that they were very fresh and juicy and low in tannins and were not green. They should be drunk in their youth, but some of them were far greater than I could imagine. It is possible that certain appellations are superior to 2012 in the Côte de Nuits if there was careful attention paid to production or hand sorting. It is not a vintage without problematic wines but there is a lot to enjoy.

As far as pricing is concerned, most wines were the same price as in 2012; no one went down in price and a few growers went up. There is very little wine to be had and prices are high in bulk with so many small crops. I am afraid that the lesser appellations such as Bourgogne Rouge are going to go way up because that was the category that was affordable, the Grand Crus from the Côte de Nuits are only for millionaires now.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Written Notes

There were two more Montrachets to go, and we were walking this way towards the 2012 DRC Montrachet.  It was so young yet so exotic, with cleavage spilling out of its shirt, pick your own sex lol.  It was long and deep, a bit painfully so, but its showy fruit more than made up for it (96).

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Information

Origin

Vosne-Romanée, Burgundy

Other wines from this producer

Bâtard-Montrachet

Corton-Charlemagne

Corton Grand Cru

Echézeaux

Grands Echézeaux

La Romanée-Conti Grand Cru

La Tâche

Les Gaudichots

Marc

Richebourg

Romanée Conti

Romanee Saint Vivant

Vosne Romanée

Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Cuvée Duvault Blochet

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