FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 87
Domaine Coche-Dury Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2018
A Meursault family that never courted fame farms a sliver of the hill of Corton just below the cross, and in the hot, overflowing summer of 2018 it made a white Burgundy that collectors chase from bottle to bottle.
- Maker
- Domaine Coche-Dury
- By price in wine
- 13 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Domaine Coche-Dury, Meursault, Burgundy
- Appellation
- Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, Cote de Beaune
- Grape
- Chardonnay
- Parcel
- In the Le Charlemagne climat, just below the cross on the hill of Corton
- Original parcel size
- About 0.34 hectares, roughly three-quarters of an acre
- Vines
- Planted in 1960, per the domaine's U.S. importer
- First vintage
- 1986
- Winemaker
- Raphael Coche, in charge of the winemaking since 2010
- Domaine size
- Almost 9 hectares across six communes
A sliver of Charlemagne's hill
Corton-Charlemagne is a white grand cru of about 52 hectares that wraps around the upper slopes of the hill of Corton, across the villages of Aloxe-Corton, Pernand-Vergelesses and Ladoix-Serrigny in the Cote de Beaune. It became a grand cru appellation in 1937. Only Chardonnay is allowed today, grown on oolitic limestone and marl on the upper slope, while the clay-rich soils lower down suit red grapes better.
The name carries a legend. The emperor Charlemagne is said to have owned the hill and planted it with red grapes, until his wife Luitgard objected to red wine dripping onto his white beard, and white grapes were planted in their place.
Domaine Coche-Dury's piece of it is tiny. Its original parcel, about 0.34 hectares or roughly three-quarters of an acre, lies in the heart of the vineyard in the Le Charlemagne climat, just below the cross that stands on the hill. The domaine began farming it in 1985 or 1986, and its first vintage was 1986. The vines were planted in 1960.
The ownership story is told in different ways. One account says the plot had been leased to a large Beaune house, was later split between Coche-Dury and the grower Michel Juillot, and became Coche-Dury's property in 2011, a year after the family bought a further, slightly lower section from the same Beaune family. Another says the domaine acquired its 0.34 hectares in 1986 and doubled the holding in 2012, half owned and half rented. Both agree the domaine now works roughly twice the area it started with.
The Coche family
The domaine traces its roots to Leon Coche in the 1920s. His son Georges took control of his inherited share in 1964, and Georges's son Jean-Francois, who had worked in the family vines since the age of fourteen, took over in 1973. His marriage to Odile Dury in 1975 added her family's vines and her name to the domaine.
Jean-Francois Coche became one of the most admired white winemakers in the world while avoiding the spotlight. His importer has described his secret as rigor, constant vigilance and loyalty to old-school tradition, and has recalled that requests for a meeting were met with the same answer: only in the evening, after he came back from the vines.
His son Raphael joined full time in 1999 after studying viticulture and winemaking, and took over the winemaking in 2010. With his wife Charline he now runs almost 9 hectares spread in small parcels across Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Auxey-Duresses, Monthelie, Volnay and Pommard. No clones are planted. The domaine buys and dries its own oak and has a cooperage turn it into barrels, and each wine spends two winters in barrel.
2018: more juice than anyone expected
In Burgundy, 2018 began with heavy rain through the winter and early spring, which filled the water table. A cool start held the vines back until a burst of heat in the third week of April, and flowering was quick and ideal for white grapes. Then came a hot summer, almost uninterrupted from July to September; one leading Burgundy critic counts 2018 among the three hottest growing seasons since the Second World War, with 1947 and behind only 2003.
Growers expected a small crop of ripe grapes with little juice after a nearly rainless summer. Instead the bunches were full, especially for white wine, and the main problem was finding enough tanks and barrels to hold it all. The first pickers were out from August 20, with most early starters beginning the week of August 26. Many expected the whites to be either dilute or heavy, but they turned out much better than feared, close in quality to 2017 in the Cote de Beaune.
Raphael Coche had reasons of his own to watch his cellar that year. After the frost- and mildew-hit 2016, he had chosen not to sell off the new barrels ordered for that small crop, because the barrels are reused on a two-year cycle: the barrels bought for 2016 would serve again in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Style, scarcity and how to tell it
Coche-Dury's whites are known for a struck-match, gunflint note that one critic calls beneficial reduction. Fermentations are long and traditional, with extended time on the lees, which guards against oxidation, and more new oak than usual, chosen to help the wines age rather than to flavor them. The domaine has said it wants white Burgundy to have nerve; its wines are never among the ripest or most alcoholic of its neighbors. Since 2009 it has used a pneumatic press alongside its traditional press, and visitors in 2021 found that Raphael Coche had backed off the reductive style a little.
The Corton-Charlemagne is among the domaine's finest wines, alongside its Meursault-Perrieres, and in youth it has a notably strict backbone. Quantities are minute: the original parcel produces around 133 cases a year by one account, and the 2009, from 28 rows on 0.34 hectares, came to fewer than 2,000 bottles.
One published description of the 2018 finds golden apple, ripe pear, candied citrus and a touch of toasted hazelnut, with a silky texture, poised acidity and real weight. In 2026 a price-comparison service showed an average asking price of $5,831 per 750 ml bottle for the 2018, and one investment firm put a twelve-bottle case at $72,630. These are asking figures, not sales.
A cult that grew on its own
Coche-Dury has been called one of the finest white wine domaines in the world, and one of the five or six best white winemakers in Burgundy. Its Corton-Charlemagne rarely appears on the market in any quantity, and a single bottle of a recent vintage commonly carries an asking price in the thousands of dollars.
The parcel has survived odd hazards. In 1998 a helicopter crash damaged ten rows of the domaine's Corton-Charlemagne vines. The 2018 belongs to the first decade of Raphael Coche's winemaking, a period when, after the short crops of 2011 to 2014 and the frost of 2016, the domaine began buying small amounts of grapes from neighboring vineyards, typically for its Bourgogne Blanc and village Meursault.
The numbers
- Appellation size
- About 52 hectares across three villages
- Original parcel
- About 0.34 ha (roughly 3/4 acre), later about doubled
- Vine planting
- 1960
- Typical production
- About 133 cases a year from the original parcel, by one account
- Domaine production
- 4,200 cases a year (importer) or about 3,500 cases (other sources)
- Blend
- 100% Chardonnay
- Critic scores
- None verified on a fetched page for the 2018
Timeline
Leon Coche founds the family domaine in Meursault in the 1920s.
Corton-Charlemagne becomes a grand cru appellation.
The vines of the domaine's Corton-Charlemagne parcel are planted.
Georges Coche takes control of his inherited share.
Jean-Francois Coche takes over the domaine.
Jean-Francois Coche marries Odile Dury; the domaine becomes Coche-Dury.
First Coche-Dury vintage of Corton-Charlemagne.
A helicopter crash damages ten rows of the domaine's Corton-Charlemagne.
Raphael Coche joins the domaine full time.
The domaine installs a pneumatic press.
Raphael Coche takes over the winemaking from his father.
The domaine becomes owner of its original parcel, by one account.
The first 2018 grapes are picked in Burgundy as an early, hot harvest begins.
Raphael Coche shows his 2018s to a visiting critic in Meursault.
The world in 2018
SpaceX flies its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time.
The Winter Olympics open in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Kim Jong Un becomes the first North Korean leader to cross into South Korea since 1953.
France wins the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
NASA's InSight probe lands on Mars.
Yellow vest protests spread across France.
Price record
A price-guide value is an editorial estimate, not a transaction and not an asking price. Guides lag the market and smooth over grade and condition. It is neither a floor nor a ceiling: a sale can land above or below it, and it should be checked against a realized sale before anything rests on it.
By reference price, Domaine Coche-Dury Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2018 is number 13 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (87 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Legend says Corton-Charlemagne was planted white because the emperor's wife disliked red wine staining his white beard.
- The domaine's Corton-Charlemagne parcel sits just below the cross on the hill of Corton.
- A helicopter crash in 1998 damaged ten rows of Coche-Dury's Corton-Charlemagne vines.
- Coche-Dury buys and dries its own oak before a cooperage turns it into barrels.
- Jean-Francois Coche agreed to meetings only in the evening, after he came back from the vines.
- In 2018 Burgundy's white grapes held far more juice than expected after a nearly rainless summer, and growers ran short of tanks and barrels.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026