J F Coche Dury Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2005 750ml

JancisRobinson.com/ Date tasted 25 Oct 2009
Very particular year with lots of water pressure - drier than 2003 in fact. Very healthy grapes but if anything a shortage of juice and the wine is very slightly astringent still. Raphael talks of tannin in whites in this vintage. Very rich, exotic nose - really dramatic. Very sweet - almost cr¨¨me patissi¨¨re. Certainly not juicy and the wine has lots of chew and substance and, apparently, alcohol. You want to wait a while for this. Smells almost chalky and with definitely chewiness. Solid and dense, full and very, very solid. A bit of a sergeant-major of a wine. Firm with a very particular character.

The Domaine was established in the 1920s by Leon Coche. Some vineyard plots with established grapevines were purchased and Leon bottled some wine himself.The vineyard land was passed down to Leon's three children, with Georges Coche taking control of his share in 1964 and continuing to run the estate and purchase new vineyard land. Jean-Francois Coche took over from his father Georges, on his fathers retirement in 1973. Jean-Francois's wife has the surname Dury which was added to the name of the estate.
Jean-Francois Coche officially retired in 2010 but there will clearly be continuity of style in the hands of his son Raphael who has been working alongside his father since 2003. There have been some changes already in the detail: the vineyards are now all ploughed, and a pneumatic press has been ordered to work alongside the old mechanical Vaslin.
The wines are firmly crushed before pressing, which must surely be a factor in the Coche-Dury style, then fermented and matured in barrels using a relatively low percentage of new wood, not exceeding 25% except for the very top wines.

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