Marchand & Burch Gevrey-Chambertin 2010

Description

Two friends; Burgundian winemaker Pascal Marchand (ex Domaine Comte Armand & Domaine De La Vougeraie) and Jeff Burch, owner of Howard Park. They have teamed up to exploit their love of Pinot Noir and ability to access fruit from small parcels of vineyards in Burgundy, Margaret River and the Great Southern.

Classic Gevrey. Powerful and tannic with a fair lick of oak. Quite robust in the mouth but savoury and pleasing on the finish. Rare steak with mushrooms is the thing to tame this beast. It could probably use another 2-7 years in bottle to soften and develop some silk.

Gevrey-Chambertin – Prestigious appellation, known for classy, powerful, structured wines with a mineral and dark fruited edge. Not as supple as Vosne but equally age worthy.

Burgundy – The classic part of Burgundy known as the Cote D’Or (the slope of gold) is essentially one vineyard that is 60km long and maybe 5km at its widest. From this limestone ridge some of the most complex, long-lived and aromatic wines are produced from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The Cistercian monks who owned the land codified the entire region and so each small plot has a name.

Pinot Noir – This is the most elusive grape. It is relatively early ripening and extremely sensitive to terroir. Its perfect place on earth is the Cote d’Or in Burgundy. So haunting are great red Burgundy’s charms that growers everywhere try to emulate them. Pinot Noir is not just a one trick pony, it can make great reds, rosé, sparkling and even sweet wines, whites on occasion and I’ve tasted a decent fortified Pinot Noir too.