With each passing year, it becomes more challenging to be a lover of red Burgundy. A streak of difficult vintages in the region has dramatically reduced the availability of top wines. Simultaneously, a sharp rise in global demand means that even when these wines are available, prices are often dramatically higher than in previous vintages. It’s a frustrating trend with no end in sight.
Fortunately, I am occasionally reminded that truly outstanding, world-class French Pinot Noir exists outside of Burgundy. If you know where to hunt, there are a few elusive, stunning reds lurking in the rolling hills just two hours west of Burgundy within Sancerre. The best examples telegraph the perfume of Morey-Saint-Denis with an additional dense layer of limestone on the palate. This wine has been a SommSelect customer favorite for the last two years. However, this vintage it’s a downright no-brainer because the price has actually decreased. All elements are working its favor: a legendary estate, ancient vines digging deep into the celebrated limestone-rich real estate, the gorgeous 2011 vintage, and five years of aging gently lulling it toward perfection. It’s an extraordinary value – $35 won’t get you anything remarkable in Burgundy in most cases, but today it affords you one of the most delicious and cellar-worthy red Sancerres we’ve offered. Do you want to fool a Burgundy-loving friend of yours? Blind taste them on this!
The Crochet family were pioneers of the Sancerre appellation. In the early 1900’s the family was one of the first to bottle their wines and sell them in Paris. In the 1980’s, Lucien Crochet’s Sancerre was one of the first of the region’s wines to break into the Bordeaux and Burgundy dominated New York wine market. To this day, the family’s white wines are a globally recognized standard. They grace numerous 3-star Michelin wine lists around the world and are benchmarks of the region. Perhaps because there is so much fanfare focused around the Crochet family’s white wines, their outstanding reds remain one of my favorite well-kept secrets in the wine world. I’m particularly excited to write about these wines today because I regard them as some of the most exciting Pinot Noirs bottled outside of Burgundy.
Mirroring the basic soil “recipe” in Burgundy, the Crochet family’s vineyards contain a mix of limestone and clay with a touch of gravel. The family’s Pinot Noir vineyards are predominantly south facing, adding a welcome addition of heat and sun exposure to this typically cool growing region. All farming is conducted using organic materials, and grapes are harvested by hand. Following the harvest, grapes are fermented in stainless steel tanks. In the year that follows, 60% of the wine is aged in mostly neutral oak barrels and the remaining 40% in tank. Next, the assemblage is performed before the wine is aged for an additional eight months in stainless steel tank. Finally, the wine is bottled and aged for an additional 2-3 years before it is released in the US. It’s worth mentioning that this is an extremely patient, time consuming, and expensive process for any red wine with such a modest price tag. Top producers in Burgundy are releasing their 2014 Premier Crus while we are just now seeing this 2011 Lucien Crochet for the first time.
In the glass, the 2011 Lucien Crochet “Croix du Roy” has a dark ruby red core with garnet and slight orange hues on the rim. The nose is a dead ringer for young fine red Burgundy with dense and layered aromas of red currants, black cherries, black plum, crushed stone, highly perfumed aromatic flowers and dried mushrooms. The palate is medium bodied and perfectly articulated with impressive density, tension and assertive yet finely layered tannins that recall a maturing Volnay. As the wine opens up in your glass, flavors of fresh black cherry, black currant, pomegranate, forest floor, rose petals and a faint cigar box note of oak. Exposure to oxygen will only embellish this wine’s gifts, so please pull the cork at least an hour before serving just above cellar temperature (60-65) in large Burgundy stems. This bottle offers impressive density and structure – and still quite youthful tannins – on the palate so I urge you to pour it alongside an appropriately juicy and delicious protein. Perhaps a seared Veal chop with sautéed mushrooms, or a bacon wrapped filet mignon with autumn root vegetables? You can’t go wrong provided you combine a little gratuitous fatty protein with savory aromatics to compliment this gorgeous wine.
In conclusion, I must lobby strongly on behalf of this bottle’s extraordinary cellaring potential. Trust me. It has absolutely everything one could ask for in built-for-the-cellar red Burgundy but at an extremely generous price. I’ve enjoyed many bottles of older Crochet Sancerre Rouge over the years, and they are reliably gorgeous – 2011 will only extend this legacy. This is the bottle you take in a brown bag to a Burgundy tasting in 5 years and blow everyone off their seats. There is little-to-no guesswork here. So, if you are considering making an investment in a few expensive bottles of great Burgundy this year for extended cellaring, I would instead encourage you to take the equivalent dollar amount and put it toward a 6-pack or case of this wine. You won't regret it.
