Tasted in Lantignié with Pierre-Alexandre and Jacky Gauthier, 23 February 2017.
Domaine de Colette
4245 Route St Joseph
69430 Lantignié
Tel: +33 4 74 69 25 73
www.domainedecolette.com
Jacky on 2016:
“The vintage was not so much complicated, as difficult. It was a small harvest and we were hit by hail in Fleurie – both times! Lantignié was also hit. But from a quality perspective it looks really good and certainly more Beaujolais classic than 2015. I think it’s a good vintage. Roughly 25% lower volume than a full vintage – roughly 37 hl/ha here.”
Jacky on 2015:
“I consider this a historic vintage – in the life of a vigneron, to enjoy a vintage such as this, is rare. Really a sunny vintage but also with excellent balance – it’s a reference. Certainly it’s an opulent vintage, the vinifications went well despite the quite high alcohols. There’s certainly a professional demand for the 2015s that I think the vintage merits pushing back – I’d love to commercialise this vintage later.”
The wines…
Really a super result for this domaine in 2015 – a number of the wines are quite structured so will reward buyers with some patience – but they have tons of potential.
2015 Beaujolais Villages Côteaux du Colette
8-9 days of cuvaison with while whole clusters.
A deep but round and attractive ‘traditional’ BJ nose. Nice in the mouth, fresh, lots of BJ flavours – like the nose. Layers and a good concentration. This stays fresh and is delicious for its style. Persistent flavour too. Yum!
Wax topped, non filtered, only sulfured at bottling.
A more attractive nose of depth, dark fruit and flowers – really lovely. Big volume, really layers of flavour, concentration – this is
showing really brilliantly. Super wine of fine texture and good freshness – bravo! A great finish too!
2015 Regnié
The classic cuvée of the domaine
A more open and floral nose here. Really a fine intensity of fresh but sweet-edged flavour here – a little tannin in support. Really a very tasty and mouth-watering flavour. Very yum!
70-80 year old vines – here with a little pigeage at the end of fermentation – but still all whole bunch. Have tried some tests with grills but not used here.
Really a deep, slightly tighter nose of glossy dark fruit. Extra concentration but also extra freshness. The tannin that supports is modest, the mouth-watering flavour growing and growing in intensity – this is a really great cuvée. Bravo! But it’s for the more patient consumer!
2015 Régnie Côteaux Vallière
A south-facing hillside of old vines. It’s a granitic soil but with lots of stones. Always small grapes with lots of concentration. This stays in cement with its fine lees until it’s time for bottling, a little longer elevage for this 2015.
The ‘biggest’ colour. The nose starts tight but grows and grows with silkiness – still a subtle fruit. More volume. More mouth-watering fruit flavour. Getting wider and wider and more mouth-watering. Oof this is good too! Really a mouth-watering finishing flavour with a faint supporting tannin. Excellent!
2015 Fleurie
Just below Château Bachelards below the village, on granite, 3 parcels close together giving 1 ha, ‘we did quite a bit of pigeage in 2015.’
Deep colour, just about transparent. This is a big round nose of dark and floral fruit. Very wide and fresh-flavoured. The structure is more apparent here, slowly mouth-watering, this is a fresh and pretty wine with plenty of structure today – wait a couple of years, or drink the Regniés first.
1 ha with vines of 80-100 years, mainly in Les Charmes, facing south – the ‘simpler’ of the two cuvees here, with about 20% destemming. Cuvaison of about 9-10 days.A single parcel of about Destemmed 50-70% depending on the vintage.
A wide almost muscled dark but fresh fruit aroma. Good volume, more sucrosity, more mouth-wateringly delicious dark flavours. Really delicious and with quite some power too. This is a great wine!
80 year-old vines, destemmed.
Here the nose starts a little tighter, more saline, slowly, slowly widening and with. Nice silk, but never as deep and dark as the last wine. Ooh, this has super depth and richness of both flavour and texture. Layers and layers of flavour. It’s fresh but it’s not too energetic. Really a great wine. bravo!
From Le Mont, but its next to Rochgrès, plenty of destemming for this wine.
This is a nose with depth but a more overt freshness above. Big, silky, richness of texture and depth of saline accented flavour. This is massive wine, wine to wait 10 years for. Super brilliant, but I probably wouldn’t take a second glass today – be patient. Bravo!
Named after the grandmother of the old owner, the oldest vines of the domaine in MAV – up to 14 months in barrel here with 30% new. Was bottled in December. Currently 2013 is the commercialised vintage, but it’s not made every year…
Wide, saline, fresh, vanilla. Supple, ultra-silky, layers of flavour, a little minerality and massive depth. There is potentially great wine here, but its a concentrated thing at the moment, framed with an immodest oak – but wait, it’s certainly special! The finish certainly is – bravo!
2013 Moulin à Vent Cuvée Julienne
No new barrels in this vintage.
A wide and interesting nose, almost a little menthol. A little more direct and fresh than the last, but the same concentrated and deeply textured style. Really mouth-watering, still with a little hint of bitter rigour. Fresh and floral finishing – much more open, indeed drinkable, but still a baby with some reserve of tannin. Excellent wine in 2013. Yum!