2020 Doudet-Naudin Pinot Noir Vin de France

Wine Enthusiast rated over 5000 wines from the 2020 vintage: 273 were Pinots, but barely 9% of them delivered the kind of value that merited Best Buy honors.

Christophe Rochet’s 2020 Doudet-Naudin Pinot Noir Vin de France not only made that slim list,  but got singled out in a feature article. To garner that kind of attention with a declassified wine, Rochet had to toss out the rulebook and take his expert Burgundian skills to the windswept slopes of the Languedoc’s Aude Valley.

The result, as you’ll see when you taste this incredible bottle, is an utterly crushable Pinot loaded with black and red fruit—and it’s one you won’t hesitate to reach for whenever the mood strikes you.

The venerable Burgundy house of Doudet-Naudin, based in Savigny-lès-Beaune, was founded in 1849. Today it’s in the hands of Rochet, who acquired the property in 2014 and set about revitalizing it.

For Rochet to be able to satisfy his creativity, he had to ditch the AOC and IGP classification requirements. Instead, he slapped the Vin de France label on the bottle and headed out to flex his blending skills.

Wine Enthusiast’s Fiona Adams wrote that “freedom from French wine tradition has led to a wealth of creative, boundary-pushing wines,” and this Pinot—from a site in the Aude Valley in the Languedoc, but made in Burgundy—is a prime example. It’s got all the minerality and snap of Burgundy, plus the sappy, generous flavors of a southern French red.

For drinking on the back deck or offering as a welcoming glass to greet your guests, this is a superb Pinot Noir that keeps the focus on the fruit.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 13.00%
• 15 mins
• Drink Up
• % Pinot Noir
• Serving temperature – 58°
• Screw cap