Tales from the Road 2023 kicked off in Roissy, when we piled into a Peugeot 3008 and jumped on the A6 en route to Chablis. This would turn out to be a far easier road trip than the solo adventures of the summer before as I could give up the wheel whenever my eyelids started to droop. Of course, with the upside came the down — last year I had my pick of the tunes. This year my selections were all too frequently shouted down.
At 2pm, we pulled into Chablis after a picturesque drive through rolling, pastoral hills of wheat and blazing sunflowers. A few minutes later we pulled into the winery of Nathalie et Gilles Fèvre in Fontenay-près-Chablis.
With their daughter Julie, the couple organically farms 50 HA of prime, old-vine holdings, a patchwork quilt of Petit Chablis, Chablis, 1er Cru Fourchame and Grand Cru Les Preuses. Both mother and daughter speak rapid-fire French, fastidiously describing a wealth of well-positioned old vine plantings, the jewel of which is a single 2.2 HA block of Vaulorent, a lieu set at the most southern reach of Les Fourchaumes, sharing a bedrock of limestone with neighboring Grand Cru Les Preuses. The parcel was planted in the mid-1950s, making for a richly textured, racy and refined Chablis that’s at once salty and built for the long haul. This was not only our first introduction to this stunning new addition to our portfolio, but to the 2022 vintage, a warm year punctuated by perfectly timed August rains which refreshed the vines, making for near perfect harvest conditions. This turned out to be the first of many similar stories we’d hear throughout Burgundy about a vintage that combines the high-toned richness of 2020 with the length and elegance of 2014.
Fèvre’s parcel of Les Preuses
Day 2 started in the Côte de Beaune at young Florent Garaudet’s estate in Monthelie. Here we got our first taste of the 2022 reds from barrel — high-toned and refined wines with great freshness. With the recent retirement of his father Paul, Florent now works 11.5 HA total, with 2 HA in Meursault. The villages VV bottling is drawn from five separate parcels, the largest being Les Forges with vines of an average age of 45 years. The wine was juicy and vibrant with a stony finish a mile long. Expect our Garaudet allocation to hit our warehouse mid-way through Q4.
That afternoon struck gold in Saint Romain with Romain Barolet, a 4th generation winegrower working 14 HA in Puligny-Montrachet, Saint Romain and Auxey-Duresses. A cousin of Paul Pernot, Romain took over his family’s domaine, Barolet-Pernot, in 2017. His holdings in Puligny are no joke (like the heart of the order of the ’61 Yanks), with old vine parcels in Enseignières, Clos de la Garenne, Pucelles and Bâtard-Montrachet. I loved every wine drawn from Romain’s pipette — a Bourgogne Blanc Les Combes, sourced from a single parcel in Puligny, a racy 2022 Saint Romain white, redolent of citrus-cream and stony fruit, and a classy Auxey Les Clous Rouge that’s dark, berried-up with firm and fine tannins. At just 31 years of age, Romain is still selling much of his production to the négoces. (It’s hard to argue with his strategy when you can sell a single barrel of unfinished Bâtard for 60k euros!) We will start with a modest allocation of these stunning 2022s and build upon that barring any meteorological setbacks in 2023.
Romain Barolet drawing from a barrel of Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru Les Ensegnières
In Neal Martin’s January, 2023 Burgundy report, he wrote, ”(Jerome) Fornerot might be one of [Saint Aubin’s] less well-known vignerons, but his wines do the talking…Keep an eye out because this Domaine is going places.” Our next stop would corroborate Martin’s report. Jérôme Fornerot’s ’22s place this phenomenal estate on the short list of the best of Saint-Aubin. Across every appellation from HCB to Santenay and finally, monumental Saint-Aubin 1er cru whites—the wines soar from the glass, infused with high-toned and layered fruit, and honed with crisp acidity. My favorites, not surprisingly, are drawn from the appellation’s top 1er Crus — La Chatenière, Murgers Dents de Chien and En Remilly. They are world-class white Burgundies, as are the Santenay Charmes and Saint-Aubin Les Perrières in red. We’ll see the 2022 little wines in Q4 and the rest in Q1 2024.
From Fornerot, we headed up into the Hautes-Côtes to the village of Échevronne, where Lydia Pertuzot-Cornu and Christophe Pertuzot head Lydia’s father’s estate, Domaine Cornu-Camus. Their wines have become staples of the book, providing incredible bang for the buck in Hautes-Côtes, Côtes-de-Nuits – Villages, Savigny and Pernand. These wines are always a study in the purity of Pinot Noir, showy Pinots with plenty of lively fruit, and fine tannins. Bourgogne Aligoté ’22 is a terrific little white from the oldest vines at the estate, first planted in the 1940s. The Hautes-Côtes whites and reds will be bottled soon and we’ll have a bit more continuity with the 2022s. Expect them early-Q4.
On my last trip, I spent the better part of three hours in the vineyards with Clément Barthod-Boillot before finishing the visit in the family’s cellars in Chambolle Musigy. This time, we saw Clement could only spare 30 minutes as the vineyard work took precedent. Clément is the latest in a long line expert farmers, tending not just a just 12-hectare treasure trove of organically-farmed old vines in the Côte de Beaune, Côte de Nuits, and Beaujolais from the Boillot estate, but an additional seven from his mother, Ghislaine Barthod.
With Clément still on the tractor, we had the pleasure of several hours with his dad, Louis, who joyfully guided us through retrospective tasting of Chambolle, Gevrey, Pommard, Volnay, Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie. The Boillots have been on a hot streak and the new releases and wines in barrel are again magnificent. The ‘22s from the Côte d’Or are racy and fine, a vintage that Louis believes marries the best of the previous two vintages, featuring the density of 2020 with the airy precision of 2021.
2021 is a throwback vintage chez Boillot, wines seemingly from an older era, featuring a wiry frame, fine aromatic complexity and finesse. I loved the 2021s from top to bottom. Unfortunately, as is the case all over the Côte de Nuits, yields were tiny in 2021. As a result, the domaine will once again offer family library releases from vintages 2013-2017. The older wines offer beautiful aromatics, and while the fruit remains lush and supple, the bottle age has allowed these Pinots to shed they baby fat, revealing layers of underlying tension and complexity.
La meteo was was particularly challenging for the 2021s of Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie Grille-Midi. On average, the Boillots lost 80% of their Beaujolais crus harvesting a paltry 8 HL per HA!?! Not surprisingly, the little wine that made it to bottle is dark, wildly concentrated and unusually wound up. We’ll see them some time in Q4.
Like the Côte d’Or wines, Louis’ plan is to complement the release of the 2021s Beaujolais crus with a library offer of 2017s. Stay tuned…
Many of you were able to spend time with Lucie Germain at the last La Paulée earlier this year. I was happy to see her again in the cellar on Rue de Moulin Judas with her dad, Jean-François. As always, the problem chez Germain is what the French call “la probleme de trop peu” (a problem of not enough). This fall we’ll see all the 2021 1er crus (just a handful of bottles really). That’s the unfortunate news. But the good news is that the Germain family finally enjoyed a bumper crop in 2022, as well as additional volume in Bourgogne Blanc and Meursault Villages thanks to new vineyard acquisitions. The newest red acquisition is in the 1er cru Aux Gravains in Savigny, situated between Aux Serpentières and Les Lavières, which was purchased from a retiring grower in 2020. The vines were planted in 1976 on very calcareous soil. The resulting wine is très pinot, sexy, lush finishing with fine, supple tannins.
On a much more somber note, a hail storm ripped through Meursault two nights ago. Losses are believed to be in the 50% range for the 2023 vintage.
Our day in the Côte Chalonnaise started with Marie Jacqueson in Rully. It’s our 6th vintage with the estate, but due to recent short harvests, allocations have been tight and I feel that too few clients have gotten the chance to taste how good these wines really are. That will change with the 2022 vintage.
As the story goes, near the end of WWII, Rully’s transformation began, moving away from the pedestrian “glou glou” wines, largely consumed by local factory workers, to an appellation where occasionally one could find Chardonnays or Pinot Noirs that rivaled the wines of their more celebrated northern neighbors. The story of the Jacqueson domaine starts around 1946, and some of the oldest plantings of the estate in Bouzeron and Rully 1ers Vauvry, Margotés, Pucelles and Grésigny are drawn from vines of over 70 years of age! We tasted 2022s from barrel. They’re uniformly excellent, already a pleasure to drink, but built for the longer haul. ETA January 2024.
Next stop was in Givry, with the talented Gauthier Desvignes. Gauthier explained that he battled frost and hail throughout the 2021 growing season, losing 50% of his crop before things really got started. In most vintages, Gauthier pays close attention to tailoring his vines so as to avoid any sense of overripeness, searching restraint in these historically warm growing season. But, as was the case in the Côte de Nuits, 2021 offered an old and new challenge — under ripeness. As a result, Gauthier explained that he chose to drop fruit in the summer, further reducing potential yields, but helping to nurse the small Pinot Noir harvest to optimal phenolic maturity. The results are remarkable. Desvignes’ 2021 Givrys are bright, fine and sinewed, and infused with crackling tension. This wine just hit our warehouse.
Gauthier Desvignes in his Poncey cellar
Not surprisingly, our appointment with Gaetane Carré was pushed back to 6 PM because her work in the vineyard is all consuming in July. She and her brother, Marital, organically farm 14 HA in the Hautes-Côtes around their home village of Meloisey, Auxey, Meursault, Savigny, Pommard and Beaune. In 2021, like Desvignes, they made the difficult decision to green harvest in the frost-affected vintage, reducing production but giving bunches the best shot at reaching optimal ripeness. The always-animated Gaetane poured from bottle whilst describing (in her perfect British English accent) the Carré’s frustration with the minuscule yields of 2021. Then her tone shifted as we swirled and smelled, becoming more philosophical, seemingly reminding herself why she and her brother chose this métier de fou! The ‘21s are some of the best wines I’ve tasted from this domaine. They’re racy and fine with juicy crunch. I particularly liked Beaune 1er Les Tuvilains which showed off a bright, high-toned black raspberry core. Arrival is Q4 (just 28 cases).
On the eve of Day 4, Raphaël Bérêche met us for dinner in Beaune for what he promised would be “the best chicken of your life” at L’Expression. To say the least, he was spot on.
Restaurant L’Expression Beaune — 11 Rue Maufoux, 21200 Beaune, France
FYI, we’ll see round 2 of Rapha’s 2023 release in late August.
The last stop before the train from Lyon to Torino was at Domaine Belle in Crozes. It was my first visit to Larnage. The domaine’s young proprietors, brothers Guillaume and Valentin Belle, organically farm vineyards at high elevation on steep slopes rooted in a special limestone called kaolin and some nearby plots (far more typical of Hermitage than Crozes) that are rich in granite and sand.
Kaolin rock in Belle’s Larnage vineyards
The Syrahs are lifted and bright, all but defying the appellation from which they’re drawn. The whites too were brilliant, featuring complex aromatic profiles and anise-laced stone fruit, northern Rhône Marsanne and Rousanne as it should be, but so rarely is.
Stay tuned for Part 2. — Chris McGowan