Cellar Favorite: 2013 Domaine Jean-François Coche-Dury Le Corton Grand Cru

BY NEAL MARTIN | NOVEMBER 3, 2025 

Unicorn is a word frequently misappropriated with respect to wine. In this case, the word is merited, even if unicorns do not exist. On the other hand, there are many Coche-Dury aficionados who are unaware that the subject of this Cellar Favorite does exist.

Rewind ten years. It is 2015. I am at Manhattan’s hottest place for wine geeks, La Racine. Accompanied by colleagues from my former publication, we pore over the wine list, a veritable treasure trove of fermented delights. However, there is one particular wine that catches my eye…

There it is. The fabled 2013 Le Corton Grand Cru from Domaine Coche-Dury, a one-off bottling from a parcel of Pinot Noir recently purchased by Jean-François Coche. The domaine’s plan was always to pull up the vines after the first harvest and replant the parcel with Chardonnay to augment their existing 0.33-hectare parcel leased beginning in 1986. Just two barrels (600 bottles) of Le Corton were made and, to the best of my knowledge, shipped Stateside by importer Kermit Lynch. If I recall, the wine was listed for a cool $1,000. Two of us began to cajole the others to split the cost because this would be our only chance.

C’mon guys!

Despite our best efforts, we could not persuade the others to chip in, and instead we drank something no doubt tasty, but that would never be indelibly printed on our memories like that Corton would have been.

October 2025. I am tasting with Raphael and Jean-François Coche at their winery in Meursault. I recount the sorry tale of New York and my missed chance. Raphael slips away and returns with one of their few remaining fabled bottles. The wine shows few signs of aging—not a particularly deep colour given the growing season—and its bouquet is also typical of the 2013 reds, with a sense of coolness and rusticity. Cranberry and raspberry commingle with undergrowth, autumn leaves and hints of rusty piping. The palate is well balanced with quite a firm backbone, though you can tell that after a couple of hours it would surely mellow and cohere. It is unapologetically rough around the edges, possibly due to hail damage in that year, though that is an integral part of its charm. Drinking the 2013, I understand why they uprooted the vines and switched to Chardonnay, as it does not have the élan of their Corton-Charlemagne. 92/Drink 2025-2036.

Raphael chalks wine and vintage to identify the bottle, and I take a snap.

The moral of this Cellar Favorite is simple. If you spot a wine you might never see again, don’t wait for tomorrow.

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