Seventh generation Gevrey-Chambertin estate and one of the largest holders of Chambertin.

Jean-Louis Trapet is one of the great names in Gevrey-Chambertin. He is fashioning wines of purity, finesse and elegance. He is creating the soil-driven and absolutely pure wines of his father and grandfather’s era. While the estate is best known for its three grand crus, the quality at Domaine Trapet is outstanding up and down the hierarchy of their vineyard holdings and deserves its place among the very top names of the appellation.

A passion for Biodynamic viticulture

Jean-Louis Trapet is a visionary frontrunner of biodynamic viticulture and one of the most dedicated biodynamic winemakers in Burgundy. The vineyards have been fully farmed under biodynamic principles since 1996 and have been certified biodynamic since 2009. Among the pioneers of natural viticulture in the region and they continue to lead the way in biodynamic farming.

Grape

100% Pinot Noir

Vineyard & Vinification Note

Chambertin: 1 ha 90 ares, 3 parcels – oldest vine planted in 1919

This magnificent land, from which the blue blood of Pinot Noir flows, has a complex geological composition. The base consists of calcareous clay with superb internal large surface clay. The upper part is much whiter and clayish, which consequently slows down the vegetative cycle and confers a royal and rare equilibrium on this jewel of a wine !

This Chambertin wine opens up an infinite, unlimited, elusive universe of the richest kind

When the harvest comes in, having already been sorted in the vineyard, it is hand-sorted once more then and de-stemmed to a degree, dependent on the vintage.

Cold maceration of between 5 and 7 days  encouraging greater depth of colour and more intense aromatics, without extracting too harsh tannins. Lightly crushed, there is then a long cuvaison, for more gentle extraction. Fermentation is carried out in open top vats, with natural yeasts.

The wines are aged for 15 to 18 months in barrel, the proportion of new wood depending on the wine. The purpose of the oak, in the Trapets’ view, is to facilitate controlled oxidation of the young wines. The wines remain in cask for between 12 and 18 months before bottling. The wines are essentially neither fined nor filtered but this depends on the vintage. At any rate no more that 10% would ever be filtered.

Vegan.

The Wine Advocate Tasting Note

Tasted blind at the Burgundy 2011 horizontal tasting in Beaune, the nose on Jean-Louis Trapet’s 2011 Chambertin Grand Cru takes time to settle down, eventually offering baked cherries, strawberry, a touch of bacon fat (perhaps just a hint of brettanomyces ?) and earth, later manifesting marine influences like Armand Rousseau’s. The palate is medium-bodied with quite dense tannins, good body, but missing finesse toward the finish that feels more forward than it ought. Neal Martin, August 2014 – 90 Points

Allen Meadows’ Burghound Tasting Note

A discreet touch of wood sets off equally cool, ultra-pure and restrained aromas of dark berries, earth, wet stone and a gorgeous panoply of floral elements. There is superb intensity to the powerful and tautly muscular large-scaled flavors that exude a very fine minerality on the overtly austere, serious and strikingly long finish that delivers a whole other dimension of complexity. As Chambertin goes, this is not an especially big or brawny wine and while the word finesse is not really apt in this case, it is more refined than usual. 94 Points, January 2014

Food Pairing

A great partner of guinea fowl, chicken, duck, rack of lamb or a simple steak (no heavy sauces. Also good partner with cheeses (not pungent)