2013 Ramonet 'Chevalier-Montrachet' Grand Cru

Domaine Ramonet is one of the unquestioned star producers of Burgundy. The story starts with Pierre Ramonet (1906-94), a figure of legend both for the quality of his wines and his eccentricities of character. Though son André was involved for a while, the succession was really taken on by the next generation, Noël and Jean-Claude Ramonet, with the latter now firmly in charge. Noël’s sons (Michaël and Pierre-François) and one of Jean-Claude’s daughters (Anne-France) are now full members of the team.

The white wines are highly individual. They were frequently part of blind-tastings in my formative days in the 1980s, with Harry Waugh and Bruce Templeton and others. The Ramonet wines would typically be nowhere in the running at first sniff, but would subsequently blossom and frequently take first place by the end of the evening. The strongly mentholated character which they had in those days needed time to blow off.

There is very little settling of the solids before fermentation, and not too much new oak – about one-third apart from Le Montrachet – giving the wines a solid, thick texture. Sometimes one can detect a menthol character to the wines on first opening, though this blows off with aeration.