Tasted in Béru, with Gaëlle Ribé, 05 January 2021.
Domaine Château de Béru
32 Grande Rue
89700 Beru
Tel: +33 3 86 75 94 95
www.chateaudeberu.com
More reports for Domaine Château de Béru
Gaëlle on 2020:
“I’m very happy with it, certainly the quantity – we started with a lot of grapes but then came the dryness – we still thought we had a lot but there actually wasn’t much juice. 32 hl/ha which we’ve become used to but we thought we had 50! Super juice and with good acidity – all fermenting easily at low temperature – all done ‘natural’ and finished before the new harvest. We did have a short hailstorm not long before the harvest – but starting 24 August and all done in 11 days.”
Gaëlle on 2019:
“A lot down in 2019 – and that was all down to the heat of the summer – some of the parcels were as low as 20 hl/ha – of-course not all. Also wines that were quite easy to ferment except for 1 wine which we will taste first, but all were much easier than in 2018.”
They are now Ecocert qualified for all the négoce wines here.
The wines…
Outstanding – certainly my greatest tasting in the first week, from 3, of my visits in Chablis – indeed, possibly the greatest of them all! But you are (I would!) going to have to wait for a while for that barrel flavour to fade.
2019 Chablis Terroirs de Béru
350-400m altitude, Kimmerigian, usually windy, the snow always stays here longer, but it’s also warmer in the summer. The only wine with 5% elevage in foudres and the rest in tank. This cuvée normally accounts for about 1/3 of the domaine, and always the same parcels are used.
A timid nose but one with a width of riper lemon fruit. Nice energy, a faint tannin at the base. The minerality is super but you sense the sugar – perhaps 4-5 grams, still – in the width of mouth-watering flavour in the finish.
From the plateau of the hill here, above Chichée, plus a higher hill. Very draining white soil with lots of fossils here, Kimmerigian rock but ‘more angular.’ Have been slowly increasing the amount of oak – for both fermentation and elevage – it was all barrel vinification and elevage this year.
Rounded by the barrel but this nose is still quite attractive. Wide, beautiful clarity again, the concentration deepening and ingraining into the palate. Lovely acidity. That’s a great Chablis just wait 2 years for the barrel to fade.
‘A little terrior near the mid-slope, lots of wind the whole year. Limestone like small galets.’ Sampled from barrel and it’s not seen any sulfur yet.
Here the nose shows the barrel just a shade less – nicely wide, pure, perhaps a little accent of white mushroom. More direct – good incisive start, more overtly mineral but also mouthwatering – that’s really great flavour in a great finish – again wait but you will be rewarded – bravo!
A walled section of vines next to the château – there’s some clay in the soil here. All barrel for this cuvée.
A higher-toned nose, still with a modest accent of barrel. The most energy so far – bubbling with energy and a vein of minerality. The finish mouth-watering gorgeously – autosuggestion – orange-fleshed fruit in the finale? How could I not say bravo!?
2019 Chablis 1er Vaucopins
A very steep slope here. Again Kimmerigian but also with blue clay. They are old vines and it’s also a small parcel – just one barrel in 2019
A rounder nose due to the barrel again. Almost steely minerality, shimmering with acid-energy – so wide, slowly melting. That’s a super wine.
The mother rock here is older than the Kimmerigian. It’s a little Clos within high walls so it’s more protected from the weather (but not 2016’s or 2017’s frost!) There’s more clay.
Faint barrel, perhaps a suggestion of reduction too. Ooh – that’s so good, so mouth-watering, so intense. This mouth-filling wine is really special with a very fine agrume acidity Bravo – great Chablis… ‘it’s our grand cru!‘ says Gaëlle
Wines de négoce:
Vines from Saint-Bris
What a nose, slightly textured, cushioned but with white chocolate and wool – I could be sniffing a 20-year-old chardonnay! Supple, silky, layered, wow! This is up there with the Bret Brother’s Arigoté
2019 Pinot Gris
From Joigny – maceration in small tanks – virtually a carbo approach
Rosé colour. A deep aroma, of more natural style. Supple, interesting, floral, faintly tannic – a high-toned, lightness of perfumed red fruit in the middle flavours. That’s a more than interesting bottle – delicious…
2019 Bourgogne Côte d’Auxerre
All pinot, whole cluster, no pigeage, just maybe one or two when fermentation is done.
Very open, forward red fruit but with interesting depth too. Also a perfumed style to this wine – modestly touched by the tannin still a super texture. The finish much more mineral, touched also with salinity – more serious – but never too serious – delicious again. Gaëlle says always a wine to drink after 3 or more years – it just explodes…
A spicy, dark-cherry nose – this spice is very characteristic of Epineuil. A more sophisticated flavour and texture combination. Hugely enjoyable but like the last narrowing and becoming stricter in the finish but again, never too much. Probably the best Epineuil I ever tasted!
There is one response to “Château de Béru – 2019”
I visited when 13/14 were available which were super at the domaine but the following years developed that flaw (for me) of “rancid butter” in the aftertaste which I find in many of the more extreme natural whites. Have you experienced this with later vintages? I really like the structure of the wines here but have not been buying them after 2014. Cheers from Stockholm!
That’s a really interesting observation.
My first visit to taste was for the 2015s so I don’t have the back-catalogue of tastings for 13/14, nor of tasting older bottles. Some of the 15s were a little on the natural side but from my perspective each year they seem ever-more pure and beautifully structured – though the flaw, one could say, in my system is that I never see the wines after bottling. I really hope that they no longer follow the path you’ve previously noted – it would be a terrible shame for what seems like brilliant juice…