Dom. Hudelot-Noellat
Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru
Vougeot
2015

The producer

As is often the case with Burgundian “Two Dads” domaines, the marriage of Alain Hudelot and Odile Noellat created this domaine in 1964 from part of the expensive vineyard holdings of the Noellat family. Alain ran the domaine, building the reputation as one of the finest in Burgundy for over thirty years until gradually passing the reins to his grandson Charles van Canneyt in 2008. Attention to detail in the vineyards lifted the quality, adding an extra dimension to richness and finesse if one could imagine that possible.

While Hudelot-Noellat owns centenarian Romanee-Saint-Vivant vines and very old vines in Richebourg that produce some of the finest examples of those two vineyards, they also own 0.69ha of Clos de Vougeot and make one of the best wines from this variable Grand Cru.

The wine

Hudelot-Noellat owns 0.69 hectares in the Clos de Vougeot grand cru – in the lieux-dits of Chioures and La Garenne. Vines were planted in 1950 and wines are matured in French oak barrels of which 50% are new. Hudelot-Noellat’s is one of the finest expressions, from this large grand cru, with its chiselled crushed rock minerality that intermingle with black cherry fruit and floral notes, supple tannins, and uplifting acidity.

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.