2008 Louis Latour Château Corton Grancey Grand Cru 750 ml

An apex library Pinot Noir from one of our favorite Burgundy producers, the perfect bottle age and estate-direct provenance of Louis Latour’s 2008 Château Corton Grancey make it the ultimate Grand Cru in everything but price. 

With its 13 years of age, this exceptionally rare wine represents the holy grail of the famous Hill of Corton in its ideal drinking window. 40-year-old vines from five of the finest southeast-facing Grand Cru vineyards—Bressandes, Perrières, Grèves, Clos du Roi, and Chaumes—are hand-harvested and walked to Château Corton Grancey, which is a literal stone’s throw from these sites.

This Grancey walks an exhilarating tightrope between its taut muscularity and silky soft tannins, framing a vibrant core of black and red fruit that tapers seamlessly into baking spice, earth, and umami. Still energetically youthful, but mature in expression, it’s impossible to resist now, though the patient will be rewarded with another two decades of cellar improvement.

Louis Latour offered us first dibs on this special 2008 library release thanks to the steadfast devotion of Wine Access members, and we scooped up the entire allocation shortly after we returned from Burgundy last year.

The 18th-century Château is an old cellar built into the Hill of Corton. Grancey isn’t open to the public, so we were honored at the invitation to walk down its long driveway flanked by ancient stone terraces and vines leading deep into the hill. The estate has been in the Latour family since 1891, and as a young child, proprietor Louis-Fabrice Latour played kickball in that driveway—and sent who knows how many balls crashing into Grand Cru grapes.

Beyond the cellar, the slope is gentle and from Grancey, you’re already midway up the Hill of Corton. We grabbed glasses and a young bottle of Louis Latour Château Corton Grancey and went trekking through the mix of clay and rocks the size of tennis balls, walking between the rows, breathing in the air. We were lost in the moment, trying to grasp the significance of where we stood, heading north through the vines of Corton Clos du Roi and then along a limestone hillside until we came to Corton-Charlemagne. It was Everest to us.

Looking back at Grancey, we could see all five Grand Cru sites that delivered grapes to the old cellar, where the wine was fermented, aged, and bottled. We’d taken one of those bottles with us so that it could journey backwards, through vineyards that gave it life, only to be uncorked and enjoyed within sight of its beginnings, as the sun came out for a few sweet minutes. We swirled, taking it all in—imagining what this wine would taste like once it reached maturity.

With the 2008, we don’t need to imagine. A rarefied Pinot Noir that’s ready to relish now, while your younger Grand Crus inch toward adolescence, this library wine from Louis Latour represents a crown jewel of Burgundy without the royal cost of entry.