Domaine Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Aux Beaux Bruns 2023
Domaine Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Aux Beaux Bruns 2023
92-94pts Vinous
The 2023 Chambolle-Musigny Aux Beaux Bruns 1er Cru has a deeper, richer, more tertiary nose than the preceding Aux Combottes. Touches of brown spice emerge with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with gentle grip, good structure and complexity. This is a little sauvage and savory toward the lingering finish. It's not quite up there with the superlative 2022, but it will give 15 to 20 years of drinking pleasure. - By Neal Martin on November 2024
Winemaker Clément Boillot is now in charge of both his father’s, Louis Boillot, and mother’s, Ghislaine Barthod’s cuvées. That comes to some 30 different wines stretched across much of the Côte d’Or, excluding their expanding roster of Beaujolais wines. I found him in a chatty mood, and after a quick discussion about the Rugby World Cup and his efforts to replace old vines that suffer degeneration (they have half a hectare planted with the susceptible 161-49 rootstock), we broached the intake of 2022.
This year, instead of Ghislaine Barthod meticulously assembling representative samples in the barrel cellar, I tasted the wines in the comfortable warmth of their home. She guided me through her namesake range whilst her son, Clément, escorted me through those bearing her husband, Louis Boillot’s name. Clément oversees not only this gallimaufry of wines, but also nine cuvées from Beaujolais that are almost entirely from Moulin-à-Vent and sold under Domaine Louis Boillot.
“We did a lot of green harvest,” he told me. “We cut between 30% and 50% of the bunches in July depending on the vineyard so that we averaged around 40 hl/ha, a little lower in Gevrey at 35 hl/ha. Harvest began on September 9, though as usual, we picked the Volnay Les Angles earlier, on September 6. Everything is destemmed and the wines matured in 15% to 20% new oak. We have introduced more 600-liter barrels, so I had to buy some new ones [to start the barrel rotation of new and used oak]. The reds were racked 15 days earlier and the samples represent the final blend. I am surprised by the freshness and energy from such a warm vintage. The fruit is exuberant. There is just a little more ripeness in the Gevrey’s [under Louis Boillot] where the maximum alcohol is 13.8%. The Beaujolais wines underwent a 14-to-18-day cuvaison. Here, I am doing less extraction and using more vats.”
