Maison Roche de Bellene, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, Burgundy

An introduction to Maison Roche de Bellene, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, Burgundy

Planted entirely with Pinot Noir, Clos de la Roche is the most northerly of the four Grand Cru’s of Morey-Saint-Denis in Burgundy’s Côte d'Or. Soils here are largely limestone based with marl and clay, producing structured, opulent wines with spicy red fruit and savoury-earth notes. With a network of growers across Burgundy’s best sites, Maison Roche de Bellene decides which parcels to use in each vintage, sometimes selecting fruit from more than one plot. With an emphasis on sustainable and organic farming, the fruit, or base wine come from old-vines, planted on south-east facing clay-limestone soils at an elevation of 280m. The Production of Maison Roche de Bellene Clos Roche is extremely limited and often less than 500 bottles.

Performance

Understanding Maison Roche de Bellene, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, Burgundy

Made from the region’s signature Pinot Noir grape, the wine is produced from hand-harvested fruit. A proportion of whole bunches is used during fermentation with indigenous yeasts. The wine spends up to 18 months in barrel, 50% to 100% new oak. Usually bottled filtered but unfined (vintage dependant), this is a rich, concentrated wine, which has spicy red fruit notes and grippy tannins that will need a few years to round up. The wine rewards extended cellaring of 15 years or more. Jancis Robinson MW described the 2010 vintage as ‘polished and beautifully balanced even it's just slightly timid. Pretty mighty though’.

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