TN: 2016 Bouchard Père et Fils Corton-Charlemagne Domaine

2016 Bouchard Père et Fils Corton-Charlemagne Domaine - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru (7/15/2020)
Good GC weight, but too flabby and tropical. Orchard fruits abound but lacking minerality or acidity. I don’t know where this will head in a few years, but right now it’s disappointing.

Posted from CellarTracker

Anyone have any insight into whether this is a Bouchard trend or an aberration?

Andrew:

I appreciate these honest assessments. There are a lot of Bouchard value play comments about their upper end whites, so it’s useful data point.

Update after I left half the bottle to today. Showing much less flabby and a bit more acidity. Still not the steely minerality that I would hope for. I think the house style combined with the ripe vintage wasn’t a good pair. I hope 2017 and 2018 are better matched.

Surprised, given the vintage and what I perceive to be the relative acclaim for Bouchard’s whites.

I’m drinking the '11 of this tonight and it’s on point, good acidity and plenty of rocky material. Not at all flabby. I do remember not liking the '09 nearly as much, had some kind of lanolin/waxy thing going on and that was a really ripe vintage. I also had the '16 Meursault Perrieres earlier this year and while it wasn’t the most high toned white burgundy I’ve had from the vintage, it was a good wine with minerality and reasonable balance.

I wouldn’t give up on Bouchard from this one experience.