Albert Bichot Domaine du Clos Frantin
Echezeaux Grand Cru
Vosne-Romanee
2016

The producer

The Albert Bichot company was established in Beaune in 1831 by Bernard Bichot and is currently run by Alberic Bichot (born in 1964) who has hugely improved and modernised the business. The firm’s own wines come from a series of domaines located from north to south in Burgundy and including the Cote de Nuits estate ‘Clos Frantin’ which is what we currently list.  

All grape material for these domaine wines come from the company’s own vineyards. Albert Bichot also runs a successful negociant business, the grape material for which is always purchased, and wines bottled under the ‘Albert BIchot’ label. Wines were always correct and pleasant but have recently started to become impressive. Their quality (and prices) are on the rise. Watch this space.

Bichot has holdings in Gevrey, Chambolle, Nuits and Vougeot but some of their star wines are in Vosne Romanee

The wine

Clos Frantin owns 1 hectare of vineyard land in the ‘Les Champs Traversins’ lieux-dit, of Echezeaux grand cru, which has sandy marl soil and is lying relatively high up on the slope, thus producing a more delicate expression. The wine is aged for 14-18 months in French oak barrels, of which 50-70% are new. Clos Frantin’s Echezeaux is rounded and balanced with layers of red summer fruits, and an earthy and dark chocolate 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.