2016 Chassagne Montrachet Clos St Marc
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Tasting notes
Pale, bright yellow. Incredibly sappy aromas of lemon, lime, white peach, orange zest and crushed stone, accented by a note of rhubarb. At once powerful, densely packed and refined, conveying outstanding inner-mouth energy and precision without any impression of weight. Not a monster of opulence; in fact, the dominant impression here is of penetration and thrust, with the citrus and mineral flavors showing lovely purity and floral lift and building inexorably on the long aftertaste. As Pillot often says, this wine is barely at the starting block today. Its 2017 sibling may be fleshier but this wonderfully pure wine is actually a bit higher in octane (13.1%, vs. 12.9%). This is the first vintage that includes the young vines that Pillot replanted in 2003; the other half of the vines in this clos are 100 years old.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
(13.1% natural alcohol; Pillot told me that half of his 0.5-hectare holding from this walled vineyard within Les Vergers is 100-year-old vines and the other half was planted in 2003; prior to 2016, the young vines were declassified into Pillot's Vergers bottling): Bright, light yellow. Lovely perfumed nose offers orange zest and crushed stone. Large-scaled and powerful but very fine-grained, with opulent flavors of soft citrus and stone fruits and saline crushed-stone minerality. Thick for the year but with terrific orange zest lift. The wine's bulletproof fruit pushes everything out of its way and resounds on the finish. Very strong for the year but I would not describe this as delicate.