2019 Domaine Ponsot, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2019 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru is rich and powerful this year, bursting with notes of pear, orange oil, almond paste and white flowers. Full-bodied, layered and concentrated, it's one of the riper, higher-octane wines in the cellar this year. Of course, it may well tighten up and integrate further with another winter on the lees. Domaine Ponsot started picking on September 20, and winemaker Alexandre Abel reported yields some 35 to 40 below average, with alcohols in the 14s and healthy pHs at around 3.3. Yet while alcohols in 2019 were if anything higher than in 2018, the 2019 wines are more elegant, with livelier fruit tones and less overtly muscular structure. That's not a criticism of the 2018s, however, which we revisited from bottle, confirming that they are wines that will require patience: interestingly, the most put-together of the range was the Clos de la Roche, a cuvée that was bottled last, in July 2020, and which certainly seemed to have profited from the longer élevage. (WK) 91-93