Les Baudes

This muscular and powerful wine is still brooding, but shows a very concentrated palate with some wonderful chocolate notes.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director

Ghislaine Barthod harvested her small crop, 35% to 40% down on 2009, from 24th September over 5 days. She feels that the wines are riper than 2002, our suggestion for a comparable vintage. We tasted on a day shrouded in mist when everything seemed dank and dour, so it is more than likely that Ghislaines wines will turn out more lively and fragrant than reported below, when the structure appeared to dominate.

Denser than Beaux Bruns, but then it borders Grand Cru Bonnes Mares. This is altogether more four-square and tannic and substantially rewarding. Drink from 2015.

Offering the same dense dark colour as Ghislaine’s other wines, this has more of a smoky, savoury character mixed in with the dark raspberry fruit, decent acidity and discreet tannins. Drink 2022-2030.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

Picking began here on 4th September and took five days in incredibly easy conditions. The thick skins on the grapes and the ease with which the colour emerged meant that it was important not to go chasing the tannins, according to Ghislaine, so she used pumping over rather than punching down. All bunches were de-stemmed as usual. The crop is, once again, slightly on the small side.

This is right on the Morey end, so there was much less frost and 3.5 barrels made, just down one on a normal crop. With cherry stone and black fruit, this shares the same Bajocian red clay as Bonnes-Mares, which sits just above, across the road. This gives a serious, cool stone edge and the result is long and fine. At this point, Louis asserted, unable to hold back: “C’est une grande année!”. Drink 2022-2030.
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer

Ghislaine Barthod’s domaine originated in the 1920s with Marcel Noëllat whose daughter married Gaston Barthod, a soldier stationed in Dijon who came to buy some wine and got the girl as well. He gave up military life for the vineyards in 1960. His daughter, Ghislaine, and her partner Louis Boillot bought their current premises overlooking Premier Cru Les Feusselottes in 1986. Though they share the team who work the vineyards, the vinification and commercial aspects of their businesses are kept completely separate. The domaine’s strength is the range of Chambolle-Musigny, with eight separate Premier Cru bottlings. It is hard to know whether Ghislaine has triumphed this year because of, or despite, the difficulties of the vintage. The quality she has produced is superb, perhaps due to the meanness of her yields, but tragically there will be hardly any of this glory to share. Chambolle was the hardest hit by the frosts in the Côte de Nuits and, in most vineyards, she has lost 50 to 60 percent of a normal crop, in some cases 75 percent and, in Combettes and Chatelots, there is no wine at all. For each wine, we have itemised the scale of the loss.