Louis Jadot
Domaine Gagey Beaune aux Cras
Beaune
2019

The producer

Established in 1859 Maison Louis Jadot is one of the largest in Burgundy controlling over 150ha, 70ha of which are in the Cote d’Or, but with holdings in Beaujolais and Oregon, USA. Jadot is a large negociant-manipulant with labels over various levels of quality and price, but the cream is under the Domaine des Heritiers Louis Jadot label, which has established the reputation for some of Burgundy’s finest wines, both red and white. Louis Jadot is on song.

The modern, state-of-the-art winery near Savigny-les-Beaune may not represent the romance of Burgundy but the wines themselves embody that … beautiful, finely proportioned wines that speak a little of their maker but a lot of their provenance.

Louis Jadot has impressive representation throughout Burgundy rather than specialising in one or a few particular appellations. Their quality and consistency is amazing considering that in Chambolle-Musigny alone they bottle both of the Grand Crus, six Premier Crus including an exemplary Les Amoureuses. In Beaune, Jadot makes several premiers crus wines, of which we currently list the Aux Cras.

The wine

Domaine Gagey is one of the Louis Jadot estate entities, under which they produce the ‘Aux Cras’ premier cru. Located right in the heart of Beaune, Aux Cras has south-eastern exposure at an altitude of 260 meters, and the soil is very stony. Grapes are destemmed entirely and fermented and macerated for 3-4 weeks followed by 18 months ageing in small French oak barrels.

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.