2009 Domaine Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton Les Chaillots 1er Cru 750 ml

Burgundy Lover’s Dream Bottle and Dreamy Price Burgundy Lover’s Dream Bottle At a Dreamy Price

This fall, we walked the vines in Burgundy with Louis-Fabrice Latour, and we returned with a gem: the 2009 Domaine Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton "Les Chaillots" 1er Cru, grown just feet away from the Grands Crus of the hallowed hill of Corton. This beauty hails from Robert Parker’s “outstanding” Burgundy vintage, one of the top of this century, and comes directly to Wine Access after nearly a decade in the cellars of Domaine Louis Latour. If you can find it, Les Chaillots is $70-$100 elsewhere, but thanks to our decades-long relationship with Louis-Fabrice, we are able to offer it with perfect provenance, in perfection condition—this is a Burgundy lover’s dream bottle at a dream price.

Les Chaillots is grown in the limestone, sand, and gravel of the Premier Cru Les Chaillots vineyard in Domaine Louis Latour’s home village of Aloxe Corton. Les Chaillots borders the Grand Cru vineyards of Les Bressandes and Les Grèves at the foot of Corton hill, one of the most hallowed locations in the Côte de Beaune. Now with nearly a decade in the bottle, the 2009 Les Chaillots has reached a point of beautiful balance: It is ruby-brick red in color, and shows black and blue fruit aromas, truffle and tilled earth, earned over a decade of slumber. Latour recommended a 10-15-year stint in the cellar for this wine, and it is just easing into that window right now. There is nothing in the world like aged Burgundy, and it is not often that we get our hands on a world-class Pinot Noir where the hard work—keeping your hands off it while it matures—has been done for you.

How are we able to offer this wine at this price? Our partnership with Louis Latour goes back decades. This past harvest season, we were invited by Louis-Fabrice himself, to tour some of his family’s most impressive holdings—Grand Cru and Premier Cru sites around Burgundy to “see the vines, see the soils, feel the northerly breezes that refresh the vineyards,” as Louis-Fabrice put it. And then, of course, to taste and fully realize the impacts of the local terroir on the finished wines.

The timing of our last visit to Burgundy was perfect: Domaine Latour’s army of harvest workers had just finished picking the vines, and not only were the vineyards serene, but Louis-Fabrice Latour even had the time (and was kind enough) to take us on a tour of some of the Latour’s marquee holdings throughout the Côte de Beaune. We saw the famed Croix de Charlemagne on the western slope of the hill of Corton and ventured south to look out from the tiny Grand Cru of Criots-Batard-Montrachet, where the rows of Chardonnay vines were turning a beautiful shade of gold. But as we toured with Louis-Fabrice, it was another site—one that is partially located on the property shared by Latour’s Château Corton-Grancey—captivated our attention: Les Chaillots.

Louis Latour controls about 13 percent of the Les Chaillots, one of the jewels of the village of Aloxe-Corton, much of which is enclosed within a clos. The vineyard is just a stone’s throw from the Grand Cru vineyards of Les Bressandes and Les Grèves. There are not many wines that are closer to the heart of the Latour operation than this one.

Back at the Corton-Grancey cellar, we tasted a lineup of back vintages with Louis-Fabrice that included wines that were predictably stunning: Grands Crus from the Latour sites that pepper the Côte de Beaune. But, even among the venerable Grands Crus, this “humble” Premier Cru Chaillots showed beautifully.

Hailing from one of Burgundy’s top vintages in memory, the now decade-old wine showed its age with a brick-colored tinge around the rim. On the nose and in the mouth, the Pinot Noir was a perfect balance of black and blue fruit, cedar and savory salumi notes, as well as pine tar and tilled earth. It showed a complexity that just isn’t possible in a younger wine. We can’t imagine a wine better suited for winter classics—think poulet rôti, duck confit, or black truffle risotto—or one that would be more satisfying shared, fireside, with oenophile friends this winter. Definitely capable of going a few more years in the cellar, this wine does not require one more day of age to show its full potential. Order now, order plenty, and open soon. Achieving happiness really can be that simple.