Château Bonnet – 2015

23.3.2017billn

Tasted in La Chapelle de Guinchay with Pierre-Yves and Charlotte Perrachon, 22 February 2017.

Château Bonnet – EARL Vins Pierre-Yves Perrachon
71570 La Chapelle de Guinchay
Tel: +33 3 85 36 70 41
chateau-bonnet.fr

Charlotte gave a quick tour of the domaine’s facilities: All cuvage is done by gravity, with 72 hectolitre tanks for fermentations, which deliver about 69 hectolitres of wine when pressed – a pneumatic press – maceration of about 8 days. Charlotte explaining that it’s not normal to pigeage in Beaujolais “But we have found it helpful in the last years, to ’round out’ the wines at the end of the fermentation. My brother, Julien, is an engineer and he’s trying to come up with a plan to automate this.” Destemming, or not, depends on the grapes, but 100% destemming is very rare. Here they like to use a grill in the tank in the first week before pigeage. Then it’s a mix of foudres, tanks and barrels for elevage – they testing some 500 litre barrels at the moment – it’s a minimum of 8 months of elevage here.

Charlotte and Pierre-Yves on 2016:
We’re now trying to do the pruning in Moulin à Vent where it was hailed! Spring was pretty catastrophic, it was really august and September that saved the vintage so we had good grapes with good maturity. Of-course there’s not the structure, colour or richness of 2015, but I’d say that the wines are more in a classic style. In some areas we lost 40% or more. Our Beaujolais Villages was actually the most touched by hail, but in Chiroubles 5 or 6 domaines actually closed down after they were hailed – it’s really an indication of the financial fragility of some domaines in Beaujolais.

Charlotte and Pierre-Yves on 2015:
16-17° was often seen in 2003, the lowest about 14.5° – we think we’ve learned since then! 2015 was a much easier vintage than 2016, but with only 30 hectolitres per hectare – though it’s mainly older vines here, and 2011 was the last vintage with a full yield in terms of what we look for…

The wines…

Nice people and simply lovely wines – it’s a combination to savour.

2015 Beaujolais Villages
A more fun label. All tank elevage.
A nice wide and really attractive dark red fruit – almost a silky nose. Hmm, this has a very nice richness but still with a good structure – really good balance. Waves of finishing flavour – not a bit simple, nicely lingering too. Bravo – really a great €6 worth!

2015 St.Amour
Produced since 2006. Because of our geology we are looking for suppleness and elegance. Vines on the hillside next to Julienas, quite high altitude. 2.65 ha in Bousset lieu dit top left. All tank, not all whole cluster, from majority old vines with small grapes. Extract a little less vs a Chénas for example. Never a full yield here.
The nose is relatively tight, faintly perfumed with a suggestion of silk. Rather a good volume, really filling the mouth and a richness of flavour – really plenty of tannin but very finely grained and ripe. A proper mouth-full of wine here that leaves slowly mouth-watering flavour in the finish. Yum! Just a little floral in the finish too…

2015 Julienas
An assembly of two parcels – 2.5 ha, a mix of high and low-lying vines – we like the combination of the two. Close to 14° – the highest here, though this was also the last to be harvested.
Hmm much more open, lots of dark cherry fruit freshness on this nose. Again large-scaled, but more open and less dense, a different flavour here, more mineral, more muscle in the mid-palate. Fine layered finish with plenty of tannin. Yum!

2015 Chénas
An assembly of 3 terroirs on granite and gravels – a little part of this – 10% – with barrel elevage. 10 hectares here, so the biggest cuvée of the domaine, much from around the château. A little longer cuvaison, macerations of up to 20 days.
A fine and deeply dark-fruited nose – again, very attractive. Really more in the direction of the St.Amour in terms of the volume and weight of flavour here – this has a higher level tannin though. Beautiful finishing flavour, getting wider and wider – leaving a little tannin, perhaps suggestion of pepper too. Lovely!

2015 Moulin à Vent
A deep, deep nose – almost vibrant – super. Not the largest wine, not the biggest structure, but there’s a harmony here, with layers of fine flavour and a micro-grained tannin in support. This is really super, elegant MAV still with plenty of power. Really excellent.

2014 Moulin à Vent
A little spicy and a nice depth of fruit. Good volume, a little pyrazine flavour but nice energy behind too – clearly less overtly sweet than the 2015 but a very fine and enjoyable length of finishing flavour…

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