2019 Pommard Vaumuriens on steroids!

My home domaine’s day started in a calm fashion – two plots of villages Beaune in the programme – Montée Rouge which as it sounds is a plot high on the hillside – and Bons Feuvres, a plot on the flat that borders the road to Pommard. The policy of the domaine is to showcase the differences rather than blend to make a ‘generic’ cuvée of villages Beaune. In both cases, these plots were true to the vintage – ripe, crunchy, thick-skinned, a little rot and dried-out berries to triage – super villages in 2019.

We did a long morning session – running through to a lunch-break only at 14h15 – mainly because the bins of grapes were coming in a little quicker than in many vintages – easy grapes to find/harvest, easy underfoot too – perfect conditions to pick – not too hot either as the cool wind was still with us, despite azure-blue skies. That brought us to ‘change of plan time:’ We’d planned our plot of Pommard Vaumuriens to be the final pick tomorrow, but gave the pickers the option of continuing to a ~6pm finish in the vines or finishing a little earlier and come back on Friday for just 2 hours of picking – they chose the former!

I joined the team in Vaumuriens, returning with the grapes, the horns of our vans blaring to announce the end of our vintage – much to the bemusement of ‘non-locals.’ Of course, returning to the winery at this time meant that all the triage was still to be done – we finished at nearly 8pm. Great grapes from a super vineyard with such brilliant views towards Pommard and the Saône plain beyond – and what a difference to last year when they were hailed so the maturity was delayed by 10 days!

Tomorrow will be our Paulée 😉

2019 Beaune Montée Rouge

Beaune Bons Feuvres

Lunch…

Pommard Vaumuriens

Pommard Vaumuriens

Pommard Vaumuriens

Batman Returns!

The home domaine already has the end of the harvest in mind – probably we will finish at lunchtime on Friday. Around the Côtes there are many approaches: Today de Montille finished harvesting their broad range of Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune wines whereas Grivot started today – there are others starting tomorrow, or Friday, or…

I spoke with a consulting oenologist today; he has a broad view of analyses from multiple domaines, so, with his help, I was trying to position the 2019 reds from an analytical standpoint. The level of the phenolics is comparable with other recent vintages (2015-2018), perhaps a little behind 2018 but also showing a little more acidity than that vintage. Of-course that’s based on the grapes already picked, not those that may be picked in the coming days, but you can see the ripeness of the reds from how easily the juice stains the hands and how quickly the colour is developing in the tanks, long before the onset of fermentation

Today our morning was filled with Bourgogne Blanc – from the same place as yesterday’s rouge – here is half a hectare worth. For this wine, it’s the second vintage and like last year, the main triage is for oïdium – a result of the vintage conditions and the vines being so young. These grapes had a fine, fresh, aromatic while moving over the table.

Lunch brought the chance to taste something different; I have much respect for the whites of Louis Latour, but the reds leave me confused because they taste almost as good as anybody’s wines before bottling but are tight and uninteresting for some time afterwards. I rarely see bottles with a few years of age to challenge that experience – but this 2009 was one. The nose started strange – certainly not ‘Chambolle-like’ – as if there was too much CO₂ despite 10 years of age. The palate showed it perfectly – yes, too much gas. We released much of it with shaking – it was a mousseux! Slowly the wine rounded out in shape and the nose began to grow. In the end, I’d say that it became quite tasty and yes, even Chambolle-like – I wouldn’t have said that to start with – so carafe!

The afternoon brought me joy – above, right – clusters of pinot so beautiful that they are amongst the best I ever saw on a triage table – since 2004 – fruit for the eyes rather than work for the hands! Did I forget to mention? This was Beaune 1er Les Reversées. I’d have been keeping at least 15% whole clusters, but that’s not the politique of the domaine, so all was destemmed.

Bourgogne Blanc (de Chorey)

Dry ice on Bourgogne Blanc…

Giraffe time…

2009

Cleaning time