Bouchard Pere et Fils
Chevalier Montrachet Grand Cru
Puligny Montrachet
2015

The producer

Hailing back nine generations over three centuries to 1731 the story of Bouchard Pere & Fils is that of gradual and consistent accumulation of fine parcels of vineyards throughout the length of the Cote d’Or. Their famous monopole Beaune Greve Vigne de l’Enfant was purchased during the French Revolution while their headquarters - the historic Chateau de Beaune with its deep underground cellars - was bought in 1820.

Centurion-plus wines in these cellars attest to a history of fine winemaking but for a while in the 20^th century quality languished. That is not the case today as Bouchard Pere & Fils rates as one of the great houses of Burgundy with 130ha of vines, 12ha of which are Grand Cru and 74ha Premier Cru in some of the greatest names of the Cote d”Or.

Their holdings include Beaune, Chambolle, Gevrey, Nuits, Pommard, Volnay and Vosne as well as in Chassagne, Puligny, Corton and Meursault. Holdings in Puligny-Montrachet include 0.89ha of le Montrachet, 2.24ha of Chevalier-Montrachet (plus 0.21ha of Cabotte) and 0.08ha of Batard-Montrachet.

A new winery was established in 2005, which has significantly improved their capacity. When combined with their holdings, astute acquisitions and undoubted winemaking skills, Bouchard are an impressive player in the region.

The wine

With 2.24 hectares, Bouchard is the largest landowner in the Chevalier-Montrachet grand cru vineyard. The exposition is east, southeast, and the soil is rich in chalk with marl and pebbles. The wine is fermented in barrels and then aged for 12-13 months in small oak barrels of which around 50% are new. A wine of density, precision, power and complexity, Bouchard’s is consistently one the best expressions made of this vineyard.

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.