Domaine Jacques Cacheux & Fils Échézeaux Grand Cru 2022

Échézeaux is one of the most extensive grands crus of the Côte de Nuits, located in the village of Flagey-Échézeaux, above the Clos de Vougeot and right next to Vosne-Romanée. The estate owns vines there in the En Orveaux and Les Cruots climats. The shallow clay-limestone soils, rich in scree, combined with the semi-continental climate, give Pinot Noir a slow ripening that unites power, elegance and great ageing potential.

The estate farms its vines without herbicides or insecticides. The grapes are fully destemmed, then undergo a cold maceration of about a week, before a fermentation driven by native yeasts. Like the estate’s other great wines, the Échézeaux is aged in entirely new oak barrels. The wines are bottled without fining or filtration, to preserve the full expression of fruit and terroir.

This wine reveals notes of black cherry, raspberry, blackberry, violet, faded rose, liquorice, mocha and forest floor. The nose, deep and fragrant, combines vibrant red and black fruit with a refined floral bouquet. The palate, concentrated and silky, reveals mineral depth and tannins of great finesse, carried through to a long, precise finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.