Louis Latour Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

Louis Latour's holding in Chevalier-Montrachet is a single parcel of just 0.51 hectares, named 'Les Demoiselles' — one of the most precisely bounded plots on the Côte de Beaune, sitting above Puligny-Montrachet on a steep, east-facing escarpment where thin, free-draining limestone soils over fractured rock force Chardonnay roots deep and keep yields brutally low. That skeletal terroir is the engine behind the wine's structural tension. In the cellar, Louis Latour applies the same uncompromising regime used for Corton-Charlemagne: grapes are crushed before pressing, fermentation begins in stainless steel without settling, then the must is transferred hot into 100% new, in-house-made French oak pièces (228 L) to complete both alcoholic and malolactic fermentation — with no lees-stirring at any stage. The barrels are built at the Louis Latour cooperage from French oak air-dried for up to 36 months, toasted light-long (45 minutes), giving a precise, integrated oak signature rather than a dominant one. What sets this expression apart within the Grand Cru tier is that refusal to stir: where most white Burgundy producers use bâtonnage to build texture and buffer acidity, Latour lets the wine find its own line — the result in 2017 is notably racy and fine, with a lightly almondy character and a polished, taut frame. The 2017 vintage on the Côte de Beaune delivered a lighter, more tensile style than the opulent 2016 or 2018; Jancis Robinson scored it 17/20, with a drinking window of 2023–2032.