CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET 2018
CHASSAGNE-MONTRACHET 2018
Grape variety
Tasting notes
Colour: brilliant red with garnet highlights.
Nose: dominant black fruits aromas with a spicy touch.
Palate: well-structured wine with fine, delicate yet present tannins.
Wine and food pairing
Powerful and tannic, this great red Burgundy flatters good quality meats such as grilled or roast lamb, coating their fibres in the mouth. Its aromatic power balances that of grilled pork and of curried or tandoori-style poultry. The Premiers Crus demand, at the very least, feathered game.
Serving temperature
Ageing potential
History
In the southern part of the Côte de Beaune Chassagne-Montrachet shares with Puligny the incontested title of the prince of the world’s dry white wines – the divine Montrachet (pronounced « Monrachay »). This fine, broad hillside brings out the very highest expression of the two Burgundian grapes - the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay, which grow here side-by side - such is the complexity of the district's « terroirs »!
Produced on the villages of Chassagne-Montrachet and Remigny, this appellation includes 19 Premiers Crus « climats ». The commune of Chassagne-Montrachet also produces 3 Grands Crus : MONTRACHET, BÂTARD-MONTRACHET, and CRIOTS-BÂTARD MONTRACHET.
Vinification and maturing
The grapes were hand-picked and sorted manually as soon as they arrived at the winery.
They were then pressed in a pneumatic press which allows for perfect extraction of the juices without over pressing the grapes.
Vinification and ageing took place in wooden barrels with a proportion of 20% new oak (French oak with long toast at low temperature for a more delicate woodiness).
The wine was aged on the lees for 11 months with occasional stirring.
Vintage : 2018
It is quite hardly to sum up the vintage 2018 in a few words! Winter, grey and humid was followed by a capricious spring, subject to frosts and alternating times of sunshine and storms on an almost daily basis from May to the mid-June, making this period particularly stressful for our people in the vineyards.
Then came an incredible time of nice weather, hot, very hot and even heatwave periods until the end of… October!
Another particular vintage which looks like no other! As rainfalls episodes were particularly localized, we had to deal with very different degree of ripeness from a plot to another, depending of the water volume received by each vineyard.
In 2018, as in other French wine region, quality and quantity were very satisfactory on our whole vineyard and were are very pleased with the quality of the vinified juices currently ageing in 228 L. Burgundian barrels in our cellars.
Harvest took place on our vineyards between the end of August (27th) and the 18th of September under a hot and persistent autumn sun. Even if the weather was very nice, the harvest period was very long and demanding in the vineyards as well as in the winery, due to the particularly different stages of ripeness. This is, without doubt, what one will retain from this harvest: so different ripeness degrees and so very different harvesting time from a village to another and even from a parcel to another in the same vineyard!
White wines were mostly harvested first in order to keep a nice acidity on this particularly solar vintage.
Reds, in their purple violine dress, already augur a rich and powerful vintage.
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