Dom. Chandon de Brialles
Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru
Corton Rouge
2016

The producer

With 13ha of vineyards across Savigny-les-Beaune, Pernand-Vergelesses, Corton-Charlemagne and Corton, Domaine Chandon de Briailles under the care of Nadine and Claude de Nicolay and Francois Grange has developed as a go-to estate for seductive white and red Burgundies. They are the largest landowner in Iles-des-Vergelesses and have plots in Corton Clos de Roi and Corton Bressandes.

Previously often sturdy and needing time in the cellar, organic and, since 2005, biodynamic viticulture and a talented winemaking team that has renovated the oak regime – one- to three-year-old barrels, no new oak is used - have instilled more fruit and accessibility into the wines from an earlier age. Truly lovely expressions of the wines from the Corton hill.

The wine

Chandon de Briailles owns 1.57 hectares of east-facing vineyard land mid slope on the Corton hill, in Les Bressandes. The soil is made up of limestone and clay and vines are on average 35 years old. Briailles’ Les Bressandes is always an elegant yet powerful wine, with persistent freshness and aromatic complexity.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.