Ramonet is another of the great white Burgundy estates. There is a division of responsibilities between brothers Jean-Claude and Noël Ramonet but it is Noël who makes the wines. There are 17 ha of mostly first-rate Chassagne-Montrachet vineyard plus a little of three grands crus in Puligny, which makes for a fantastic array of wines. The winemaking is somewhat intuitive and responsive to the vintage conditions but usually results in wines that have an explosive concentration and breadth within a powerful structure. Only occasionally has anything less than very good wine been produced in the last couple of decades but there is some variability, with a tendency to be almost too structured and slightly hard in some instances. Others have lacked balance, with excess alcohol for the fruit concentration, and there can be a reductive quality in others. However these are the exceptions and can be avoided by taking the precaution of tasting and/or comparing notes of a specific wine and vintage before adding one or more of these great wines to a cellar (an approach advisable not just here but anywhere that involves the kind of sums the world’s best wines now command). Reds play second fiddle to the whites but have been very good in recent good vintages including some Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru La Boudriotte (owned by Noël Ramonet and sold under his own label). A little Montrachet is made, as is some Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru Champ Canet, while some Chevalier-Montrachet is produced from bought-in wine.
