Wineshark Wine Tasting - Maison Louis Jadot

I visited this Bourgogne negociant back in 2018, as part of the study trip organized by WSG, together with Andrew Jefford. The history of the maison dated back in 1826, when they purchased the first piece of Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Ursules.

It took three decades for Louis Henri Denis Jadot to found the house, and in 1859 the family-owned domaine started. He went on to develop a negociant business focusing on selling the wines in Northern European markets. His descendants followed in his footsteps at the head of the business.

The label of the house is characterized by the instantly recognizable image of Bacchus's head, an image that has become in many ways the signature of the house and a symbol of its identity, whatever is in the bottle.

The maison has its own plant nursery to ensure high-quality vines for future generations. With a collection based on old Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines, the nursery aims to conserve biodiversity through the creation of home-grown massal selections and external selection of vine material.

There are three wineries, with the one in Beaune where I visited started in 1996, with the first vintage at 1997. The circular winery is of 45 metres in diameter, made up of 130 stainless steel tanks and wooden vats, able to vinify 200 hectares, with a built-in punch-down system.

On the day we went to the tasting room where the technical director Frederic Barnier, hosted a master class sharing with us how the two grapes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay showed up in different terroir in the Bourgogne. It was a very informative and great experience to taste so many wines of the same vintage and similar vinification techniques, allowing me a true grasp of how terroir plays a role in the style of the wine.

Throughout the years I did purchase quite a number of wines, and the following are the tasting notes of some of them:

The 2011 Clos Vougeot Grand Cru has a light ruby color with a reasonably intense nose showing good red fruit characters, supplemented with earth, sweet spice, dried spice, and some development notes of forest floor and game. The wine is well-balanced with nice acidity, ripe and silky tannin, of medium body and with decent concentration and a fairly long finish.

The 2009 Corton Clos du Roi Grand Cru has a nice intense nose showing decent complexity, with typical red fruit characters of cherries and raspberry, along with violet, earthy and spicy elements. The wine has good balance and well-structured, having good meaty tannin and nice concentration and a fair length on the finish. 

The vine was planted in 1970. It is one of the most elegant wines of Corton, in addition, the grapes are always picked at good maturity which is always very important for a Corton. Harvesting is manual in a small box to preserve the integrity of the fruit. The grapes are then carefully sorted by hand and then destemmed. The maceration of the grapes takes place in open wooden or stainless steel vats for 3-4 weeks. The vats are picked twice a day during fermentation. Ageing lasts about 18 months in the barrels of the domaine's cooperage, about a third of which are new.