I consider it a victory to obtain even a few cases of a wine like today’s. For one thing, very little of it is made in the first place. Further, the competition for Domaine des Croix continues to intensify as David Croix’s star continues to rise. Amidst high-profile stints at the respected
négociant Camille Giroud and at the fabled Domaine Roulot, Croix has simultaneously developed his own small domaine into a juggernaut.
While red wines from the village of Beaune are his specialty, this 2015 is a positively electrifying white from a tiny parcel in the Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru. This is obviously a highly sought-after release regardless of vintage (we managed a small allocation of the ’14, which quickly disappeared), but the reputation—and early drinkability—of the 2015s only made our task more difficult. We an even smaller allocation of the 2015 to share with our top Burgundy customers today, which is a shame, because I can’t say enough good things about it: In a vintage with a lot of ultra-ripe and somewhat overblown whites, this is a taut and focused outlier. There’s plenty of succulent, layered Chardonnay fruit but also a beautiful chord of freshness that will preserve this Grand Cru for the long haul. It is a sexy wine now, but really, the thing to do with the single bottle we can offer you is lay it down for a good 10 years before finding the right occasion to open it. The payoff promises to be huge.
David Croix is one of Burgundy’s young stars, sourcing fruit from this Corton-Charlemagne from just a quarter-hectare of vines in the west-facing “En Charlemagne” subsection of the storied Grand Cru— the prime white grape territory on the Corton hill. His namesake domaine was first established in 2005, when a group of investors purchased the former Domaine Duchet in Beaune and installed Croix at the helm. Croix had been ‘discovered’ many years earlier by famed Burgundy broker Becky Wasserman, who tapped him to be the winemaker at Camille Giroud. He remained at Giroud until the end of 2016, in fact, while simultaneously whipping the 5.5 hectares of Duchet vineyard holdings—most of which are in Beaune proper—into shape, converting them to (non-certified) organic viticulture.
No offer of a Corton-Charlemagne is complete without a recounting of the vineyard’s epic history. It takes its name from a former French emperor, who gifted this and other vineyards to the religious community of Saint-Andoche de Saulieu in the year 775. According to legend, it was once an all-Pinot Noir vineyard, from which the hard-partying Emperor Charlemagne enjoyed many a bottle—staining his white beard in the process. Seeking to clean up his beard, if not his act, the Emperor’s wife had the vineyard re-planted to Chardonnay. It is now, of course, ranked among the greatest Chardonnay vineyards in the world.
The mixture of oily, honeyed richness and lemon/lime freshness in this 2015 is truly fascinating, and special—it’s got a luscious, layered attack, then buttons up beautifully on the mineral-kissed finish. It is a classic straw-gold in the glass with hints of green at the rim, with a highly perfumed nose of yellow apple, pear, citrus blossoms, crushed chalk, wet stones and subtle oak spice. It has a more assertively fruity and forward nose than the ’14, and is undeniably pleasurable now if you decant it at least an hour before serving in large Burgundy stems. As always with a white of this magnitude, let its temperature climb above 50 degrees to fully realize its aromatic potential, and if you really want fireworks mark your calendar for some point in 2025, when it should really be entering its peak window. Pair it with a suitably luxurious, lemony seafood dish and you’ll be in Chardonnay heaven. There’s a reason this grape is so enduringly popular—everyone’s striving to make a wine like this!
