2021 Domaine Edmond Cornu, Bourgogne Aligoté, White Burgundy, France.
Cornu’s Bourgogne Aligoté, the only all stainless steel bottling here, is bright and zesty with a underlying depth that makes it compelling showing off lime blossoms, steely verve and a subtle medium bodied palate of white peach, lemon and crisp Asian pear fruits, along with chalky wet stone, leesy nuttiness, leafy herb and clove spice. The Cornu family settled in the small Burgundy town of Ladoix in 1870 and established their domaine in 1875, with Edmond’s son Pierre Cornu at the helm now, this well regarded Côte de Beaune estate, for my tastes is especially good for the tiny selection of white wines. That said, importer Neal Rosenthal, who has brought the wines to the States since 1978, explains that the domaine’s holdings are spread throughout the villages of the northern tier of the Côte de Beaune and Cornu’s wines capture the broad spectrum of sensory pleasures that the reds of Ladoix, Aloxe, Chorey and Savigny have to offer. I have mostly pursued the whites here, with Cornu’s Chorey-les-Beaune Blanc, which actually has some Pinot Blanc blended in it, being favorite, and now this reserved and elegant Aligoté has my attention too. The vines, which are very mature, with some planted in 1950, are located in Chorey and Ladoix, with the classic clay and limestone soils, which brings out the mineral charm here. The 2021 vintage is a more traditional style or old school year for most Burgundies, less dense that most modern vintages and very appealing for those that are looking for delicacy, and this pale gold/straw hued Aligoté captures that nicely in the glass.
As I’ve noted recently, in the last decade or so, Aligote has gotten really good, the other white Burgundy grape, which usually gets quickly forgotten and while sometime pleasant has rarely been given much attention, but that has changed and you’ll find some amazing versions these days! The ones that have caught my eye and palate most recently are wines like the Francois Carillon Aligote, that is one of the best and most interesting versions of this varietal I’ve come across, right up there is this much more old school, Cornu bottling, along with the brilliant Ramonet, and Domaine de Villiane, which is one the standard of the industry these days, plus Pataille, Philippe Chavy, another gem, Domaine Dureuil-Janthial, Hubert Lignier and last but not least, another favorite Benoit Ente. The most important area for Aligoté is the village of Bouzeron, that only became an AOC in 1997, in the Côte Chalonnaise zone, it maybe boasts the best Aligoté in Burgundy, and according to Kermit Lynch, has the preferred Aligoté Doré clone, (instead of the lesser clone, Aligoté Vert) which he says gives smaller yields, in the vineyards, to produce wines with more expressive aromatics and added depth and complexity. Rosenthal adds that Cornu’s Aligoté can be quite full-bodied, depending on the vintage, and aggressively mineral, characteristics that result from the old vines that are the source for this cuvée. The Cornu whites are extremely rare, with just about 600 bottles of Aligoté total coming to the United States and I still have never seen a bottle of their Ladoix Blanc, a unicorn wine.
($38 Est.) 90 Points, grapelive