2011 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes - Maison Champy

Juicy cranberry, autumn leaves, tart cherry. Underripe raspberry, crushed dried flowers, crunchy rhubarb. Pine sap and humid forest moss, white mushroom and moldy strawberry. Cointreau and muddled red berries mixed together in a rusty tin cup. Fresh mint and anise growing in a backyard compost pile lined with old bricks. Earthy, rustic, vegital, and brimming with pure juicy fruit. This 2011 Maison Champy Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes is a deliciously dirty fungusy foresty fruity fun Pinot Noir.

Founded in 1720 Maison Champy is one of the oldest active negociants in Burgundy. After being family owned for many generations Maison Champy and all of its cellars and land holdings were purchased by Louis Jadot in 1990. Once they took control of the vineyards Louis Jadot abandoned the Champy name and it was thus nearly made extinct, but the brand was quickly purchased back by friends of the family. Business resumed and soon Champy began making wine again. The revamped Maison Champy became fully biodynamic in 2006 and now aims to produce wines crafted with minimal intervention that speak to the true nature of Burgundy's world-class terroir. This bottling, sourced from old vines planted in 1959 in the village of Gevrey-Chambertin, wholeheartedly expresses the true spirit of Burgundy. It projects a core of pure expansive tart red fruit surrounded by a glorious cacophony of earth, stone, and organic decay. A few extra years of bottle age have helped bring out beautiful secondary characteristics here but ample acidity and tannin assure that this wine has many great years left ahead of it. This is an excellent and affordable example of Pinot Noir grown on its home turf.