Domaine de Montille Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2022
£221.25
The wine
Corton-Charlemagne is the only white grand cru of the Côte de Beaune outside the Montrachet family, a broad band of vineyard wrapping the upper slopes of the Corton hill across Aloxe-Corton, Pernand-Vergelesses and Ladoix. The best parcels sit high on pale, limestone-rich marl, cool enough that the wines are famously slow to open and famously long-lived.
Domaine de Montille is based at Volnay and farms biodynamically under Étienne de Montille, with a classical and deliberately restrained hand: measured oak, whole-bunch work in the reds and taut, mineral whites. This vintage is sealed under Diam, which the domaine uses across much of the range to take cork taint out of the equation for wines meant to be kept for decades. The hill takes its name from Charlemagne, who is said to have ordered white vines planted here so that red wine would not stain his beard.
The producer
Domaine de Montille
View all Domaine de Montille winesIn the village of Volnay, on the Côte de Beaune, Domaine de Montille is one of Burgundy most revered names. Built over generations by the de Montille family, and now led by Étienne de Montille, the estate is famed for reds and whites of rare precision. Its holdings read like a roll-call of Burgundy finest sites.
The domaine farms biodynamically, with a purist devotion to terroir and restraint. Whole-bunch fermentation and measured oak give reds of structure and perfume, while the whites are taut and mineral. The style is classical, ageworthy, and utterly distinctive.
The range spans the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits, from village wines to a peerless collection of premier and grand crus. Each bottling traces the character of its vineyard with quiet authority.
To pour a de Montille wine is to taste Burgundy at its most refined and honest. Elegant, structured, and profoundly ageworthy, these are wines for the serious cellar.
