2016 Louis Latour Corton Grancey 750 ml

Today’s Pinot Noir is the holy grail of the famous Hill of Corton: the 99-point 2016 Louis Latour Château Corton Grancey Grand Cru, an exceptionally rare and special wine. Grapes from four of the finest southeast-facing Grand Cru vineyards—Bressandes, Perrières, Grèves, and Clos du Roi—are hand-harvested and walked (or slowly driven) to Château Corton Grancey, which is truly a stone’s throw from these sites. 

“Love the depth of fruit and intensity,” raves Wine Spectator’s former European bureau chief, James Suckling, praising its “dark fruit and floral undertones,” “full body, purity of fruit and nice, powerful tannins,” in his near-perfect 99-point review. This is Burgundy royalty like no other—which come directly from the cellars at Grancey—and won’t last. 

Just a few months ago we actually stood in the hallowed cellars at Château Corton Grancey. You just can’t believe it until you’re there: 

The Château is an old cellar built into the Hill of Corton, and has been in the Latour family since 1891. A long driveway flanked by ancient stone terraces and vines leads to the stunning 18th-Century château. As a young child, Louis-Fabrice Latour played kickball in that driveway—and who knows how many balls he sent crashing into Grand Cru grapes. 

Nevertheless, as you make your way through the building’s imposing barn doors, you pass a simple tasting room for the family (Grancey is not open to the public) and continue deep into the rock of the Hill of Corton, where chunks of limestone the size of end tables jut out of the cellar walls.   

Down the spiraling stone staircases, the ceilings are low as you enter the endless barrel cellars and caves. Here, Louis Latour stores and ages some of their most precious bottles, including the Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru Les Quatre Journaux and bottles of Corton going back to 1898. 

Outside, the slope is gentle and from Grancey, you’re already midway up the Hill of Corton. We grabbed glasses and a bottle of this 2016 Louis Latour Château Corton Grancey, trekking through a 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, walking 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. 

There, looking south back at Grancey, we could see all four Grand Cru sites that delivered grapes to the old cellar, where the wine was fermented, aged, and bottled. We’d taken with us one of those bottles so that it could journey backwards, through vineyards that gave it life, only to be uncorked and enjoyed within site of its beginnings, and just as the sun came out for a few sweet minutes. We swirled just taking it all in... 

These are vineyards that renowned Michael Mina sommelier and author Rajat Parr has singled out in his book as among the best in Corton. That the ground is holy and coveted is obvious when someone like billionaire Stan Kroenke (owner of Screaming Eagle) purchases an estate half a mile away from Château Corton Grancey.

None of that mattered though, because we were only thinking of you, our Wine Access friends. We hope you’ll keep this story, and take it out and read it again and again—each time you bring up a bottle of this Corton Grancey from your cellar. But don’t forget about us, and please, drop us a line, let us know if the sun is shining in your neck of the woods each time you pop open a bottle of this rarefied and wonderful Grand Cru Pinot Noir.