2012 Quintessence de Corton Charlemagne
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Tasting notes
Bright yellow. Ripe peach, sea salt and oak notes of smoke, vanilla and spices on the nose. Very large-scaled, dense and powerful but penetrating and austere today in spite of its considerable sweetness. If anything, this extract-rich wine has deepened since I tasted it from barrel in the spring of 2013. This extremely long wine will need seven or eight years of cellaring to lose some of its baby fat and take on its adult shape.
Critic scores
Average Score
Allen Meadows, Burghound
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Bright medium yellow. Subdued following the Combettes, offering scents of lemon and musky stone. Then low in fat but impressively complex and minerally in the mouth, combining flavors of lavender sea salt, wild herbs and gunflint. Quite penetrating but not austere, with lovely integrated acidity perking up the middle palate. The chewy, very long finish will need more time in barrel and bottle to soften. These vines are routinely picked in the middle of the harvest as they ripen early on SO4 rootstock, notes Germain (many growers pick their Corton-Charlemagne at the end).
The reduction is sufficiently heavy that all that can be discerned is moderate wood influence. Not surprisingly this is notably bigger and more tightly focused than the Pucelles with its broad-shouldered and concentrated flavors that possess a highly textured mouth feel, in fact this is almost chewy. There is firm acid spine shaping the impressively long and well-balanced finish. This should be excellent though unlike some of the wines in the range this will need a few years of bottle age before it's ready for prime time drinking. Tasted: Jun 15, 2014. Drink: 2020+