En Primeur
"Immense concentration – really exciting. Bold, intense, big flavour. Powerful tannins. Succulent and ripe. Amazing length and flavour. Closed at the moment – as it should be.
Allen Meadows, Burgdound 94/100 'Don't Miss'
A brooding nose only reluctantly reveals its extremely fresh notes of plum, cassis, violets and pungent earth. There is a bit more volume to the powerful, concentrated and serious big-bodied flavors that evidence a lovely minerality on the mouth coating, firmly structured and strikingly long and beautifully well-balanced finish. This bad boy of a Bressandes is a knockout but one that is clearly going to require extended cellaring to soften what are presently resolute tannins. 94/2035+ Reviewed April 2020
Neal Martin 90-92/100
'The 2018 Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru comes from two parcels amounting to a single hectare of vines. This is more mineral-driven than the straight Le Corton, offering beautifully defined red berry fruit laced with crushed limestone and light marine aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with powerful red berry fruit. Quite heady for a Corton-Bressandes, leading to an intense finish' Vinous.com"
Domaine Tollot-Beaut has sat modestly in the centre of Chorey-Lès-Beaune since it was set up by the Tollot family in the 1930s. Nathalie Tollot is the most welcoming of hosts and her wines are among the most consistent in Burgundy.The wines are beautifully open in style with rich, generous fruit flavours and judicious use of new oak. They are poised wines with great depth and elegance.
Corton is perhaps Burgundy's most visually impressive Grand Cru, a freestanding hill that overlooks the rest of the Cote de Beaune. Corton-Bressandes is a famous, east-facing parcel of this mighty Grand Cru with a limestone-rich terroir giving highly expressive, firm, and powerful wines. Often rated as one of the very best sites on the hill of Corton. These wines have immense concentration.
Allen Meadows, Burghound;
Nathalie Tollot described 2018 as one that 'gave us both quantity and quality. We began picking on the 28th of August and continued through to the 6th of September. Last year we just weren’t prepared for the yields despite having dropped an impressive amount of fruit via a green harvest. This year however we employed more pickers so that we could rapidly bring in another abundant harvest. We were helped considerably though not only because we had more harvesters but also because the harvest conditions were ideal, and the fruit was very clean so it could be processed quickly. Potential alcohols came in between 13.2 and 14.5% and we chose to vinify very softly as it was clear from the beginning that the extractions would happen almost by themselves. We did have a few fermentation stoppages though thankfully no technical deviations resulted. As to the wines, they are definitely ripe but in contrast to say 2003, the terroir differences are readily apparent.'
Tollot noted that the 2018s were bottled in January and February 2020. Note too that the Tollot wines are deliberately bottled with slightly higher levels of CO2 so decanting the wines is always a good idea. I have made this observation before but this domaine remains one of the finest sources of top value Burgundy and the quality achieved here in 2018 will only enhance that reputation.
