Domaine Arnoux - Aloxe-Corton Les Chaillots 2018

A juicy style, with vibrant acidity that brings out light notes of strawberry, cherry, and blackcurrant. It displays a beautifully intense mid-palate, with a mineral note on the finish.

The estate has twenty-two hectares of vineyards, including eight hectares of red Chorey and one hectare of white Chorey, with the remainder spread across Savigny, Aloxe-Corton, Beaune, and Pernand-Vergelesses. The entire harvest is bottled. Pascal Arnoux and his wife Caroline are now assisted by their son Jean-Baptiste with winemaking and vineyard work, and by their daughter Audrey with marketing and communications. Since 2014, the estate has had new temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks to better regulate fermentation temperatures. The soil is plowed, and the grapes are harvested by hand, with a sorting table upon arrival at the winery. The whites are vinified traditionally and then aged for ten months, with 10% new oak. The reds undergo a three-week maceration period followed by twelve months of aging (10% new oak for village appellations, 20% for premier crus). In some years, the quality of the grapes allows us to keep about 20% of the harvest as whole clusters; “We like a bit of ‘pinot-ness,’ balance is always important; we want to enhance aromatic complexity while maintaining depth—the tannins must support the wine.”

From the 80 ares planted 35 years ago on this vineyard, an intense ruby-red wine emerges, offering a tangy aroma of blackcurrant and blackberry against a backdrop of elegant oak with hints of cinnamon. On the palate, it is full-bodied, smooth, and well-balanced, with a lovely texture built around silky tannins and a long finish of fruit and licorice. It has aging potential.

Founded in 1950, this family-run estate, located in Chorey-lès-Beaune, has been led since 2008 by Pascal Arnoux, the third generation of the family to head the estate. The portfolio includes a wide range of Côte de Beaune wines (about twenty appellations spanning more than 20 hectares between Beaune and Corton), which are frequently featured in these pages.