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  • Country ranking ?

    476
  • Producer ranking ?

    70
  • Decanting time

    3h
  • When to drink

    now to 2040

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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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Wine Information

2007 harvest

The 2007 harvest is finished. The weather is fine with a wind blowing from the North, which both delights the vigneron and makes him regret that these ideal conditions did not arrive a little earlier! But we have to adapt to the will of the climate and we perfectly know that it is in this difficult context of Burgundy with its tortuous weather, softened by exceptionally micro-climatic conditions, especially at the end of the season, that the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay grapes can reach the fine maturity that will lead them to their best expression. Even to us, vignerons, this incredible "gift" sometimes seems near-miraculous. We could witness it once again with this vintage that will remain as one of the most outstanding of these last years.

The beginning of the growing season was exceptional.

The bud burst and the bunch setting were extremely early thanks to a summer-like April resulting in a significant advance of the vegetation. Moreover, the famous Palm wind, that blows on Palm Sunday and announces the dominant wind of the year, blew from the North presaging a dry year.

We have then the feeling that the same type of vintage as 2003 was taking shape with harvest starting in mid-August. At the time of the flowering, very early also (around May 20th) the vigneron was rather happy and had all the reasons to hope for a great vintage with an average crop reduced by millerandage. Unfortunately, the flowering spread out over three weeks and had the effect of creating differences in ripeness between the vineyards, between the vines and often between the berries of the same bunch of grapes. As a consequence, we already knew that we would have to do a very selective sorting at the harvest.

These differences in ripeness could also be observed in the vines. The Chardonnay was ten days late compared with Pinot Noir, which is totally unusual. At the time of the "véraison" and of course at the harvest, there was a difference of more than a week. After harvesting the Pinot Noir, we had to wait as long to harvest the Chardonnay.

For once, the Palm wind, as mentioned above, lied and the opposite to what we were expecting happened: from May, the dominant winds blew from the West and the South and the season was often damp with a succession of heat, storms, cold, humidity, all these factors being the friends of our worst enemies: mildew, oïdium and botrytis. Fortunately, thanks to the uninterrupted attention of Nicolas Jacob, our vineyard manager, and his team, we managed to fight them while keeping exclusively to our organic methods.

Under such difficult conditions, as days went by, a good part of the early advance of the vegetative cycle was lost, even if, at this stage, we still thought that the harvest would start around August 20th.

Yet, the first part of August turned out to be one of the rainiest in recent years giving one more challenge to the vigneron: botrytis. Luckily, as it was cold, it did not develop as much as we feared and around August 20th, as often in Burgundy, a miraculous change in the weather pattern occurred: sunny days returned in force and set in until the end of September.

This dry fine weather accompanied by the North wind first stopped the attacks of botrytis and dried affected berries. One can say that in this occasion botrytis resulted into a sort of natural "éclaircissage" (thinning) and then accelerated in a totally outstanding manner the ripening of the grapes. Thanks to the reserves of water retained in the soil all through the year, the photosynthesis functioned at full blast and the production of sugar increased very fast. The grapes gained 1° to 1.5° of alcohol per week and acidities remained quite high.

By early September, full maturity was reached in our old vineyards. The harvest began on September 1st and lasted until the 11th for the red wines. Our harvesting team performed once again the "haute-couture" work that we required from them in order to eliminate the botrytis and to sort out the grapes that were bigger or not fully ripe.

As a result of our fine low yielding vines (Pinot fin) in our old vineyards, of millerandage and of severe selection in order to eliminate the dry botrytis and to leave aside the grapes that had not fully ripened, the yields are low and the crop is rather small (22ha to 28ha depending on the "cru").

Fermentations proceeded well under the close watch of Bernard Noblet.
Devatting has just finished. It is too early to give a definitive opinion about wines just released from the "suffering" of fermentation.
The wines are dark red. On the nose, they are very classic. The palate is firm and full. We will have to wait for the malolactic fermentations, that we of course do not want to hasten, before we can have a more precise idea of the characteristics of this vintage.

The fate of the Montrachet vineyards was totally different from that of our Pinots in Vosne-Romanée. As much as our Pinots in full maturity suffered from the eight storms of August and were severely bitten by botrytis, the Chardonnays, thanks to their difference at the "véraison", overcame this obstacle without being hit by botrytis. It was then essential to wait.

The grapes ripened slowly and full maturity was not reached until mid-September. We were the last to harvest golden and ultra ripe grapes on September 17th. There was quantity as well.

To conclude, we were close to defeat because of a stormy August, but the efforts that vignerons put in controlling the yields in a natural way as well, of course, as the meticulous sorting, permitted to take advantage of these 5 weeks of fine weather between August 20th and the end of September and even later.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

16 tasting notes

Tasting note

color

Full and Healthy

ending

Long, Round and Extensive

nose

Intense, Fresh and Opulent

recommend

Yes

taste

Average in Acidity, Concentrated, Complex, Firm, Fresh and Sweet tannins

Verdict

Intelligent and Sophisticated

Written Notes

A palate-cleansing 2007 DRC Montrachet snuck into my glass, and it was awesome, the best vintage of the night for this wine, although the 1999 was handicapped. This was classic and forward yet tight, big and honeyed, long and stylish, kinky yet in control. 2007 was a great vintage for white Burgundy (96+).

  • 96p

Bright full yellow. Knockout, soil-inflected nose combines menthol, honey, wild herbs, crushed stone, minerals and a whiff of caramel. Wonderfully ripe and sweet but with a light touch, thanks to its powerful stony character. The flavors of pineapple and pungent iodiney minerality saturate the palate and build slowly and inexorably. A white Burgundy of extraordinary texture and nuance

  • 97p

Poured blind at the domaine. This is a brilliant, brilliant Montrachet. It is bridled with an indescribably complex bouquet has you instantly entranced: honeysuckle, Kaffir lime, crushed stones and a hint of hazelnut. Very intense and powerful, a nose that wants to indelibly imprint itself on your memory. The palate does not disappoint. You are instantly taken by the purity of the slightly botrytized fruit that lends this Montrachet a hedonistic personality, a viscous texture with background notes of honey inflecting the flavour profile from start to finish. Perfect acidity, jaw-dropping balanced and immense power, leading to a creamy finish where there is still some new oak to be subsumed. What a mesmerising wine. Riveting.

  • 97p
strange forward nose, too forward, became better after 1h, full gold colour, would not wnt to keep this for long...
  • 93p
Bttl 01059 Pale golden. Rich nose. Intense and very nuanced and layered. Nuts, butter, citrus, minerals, flint, vanilla, floral, an incredible spectrum of aromas. Fresh acidity, lively, elegant and superb balance. Layered, again intense but also transparent, a rare mix. Gorgeous texture and structure, mouthwatering, exceptional balance. Extremelly long.
  • 99p
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Information

Origin

Vosne-Romanée, Burgundy

Vintage Quality

Excellent

Value For Money

Good

Investment potential

Good

Fake factory

None

Glass time

2h

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Marc

Richebourg

Romanée Conti

Romanee Saint Vivant

Vosne Romanée

Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Cuvée Duvault Blochet

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