Les Bois du Chat – 2015

16.3.2017billn

Tasted in Jullié with Jérémy Bally, 14 February 2017.

Domaine du Bois du Chat – Jérémy Bally
Les Bois de Chat
69840 Jullié
Tel: +33 6 63 49 24 35
www.domaineduboisdechat.com

Jérémy on 2016:
2016 started with hard work under the rain, then mildew on top – it was really not until July that it stopped – really much work in the vines and it was really hard to work the soil as it was so wet. Then there was the iniquity of hail – more than once! But at the end of July we had sun, and it lasted really up until the harvest. I did lose some harvest, a little from the hail, but more from the mildew which ate the grapes. My rendement was about 32 hectolitres per hectare, so I lost about 15-20%, but I think the wines have good potential, a little like 2014 structurally but with more finesse – possibly superior, but lets see.

Jérémy on 2015:
2015 has more concentrated, spicy skins really lots of polyphenols, the dryness was the main effect on the volume, again like 2016 roughly 35 or-so hl/ha. 13.6-13.7° are the maximum in this area, and when blended more like 12.8° because we have vineyards around 400m altitude here.

Jérémy has 3 new parcels of MAV, high on the hill facing Julienas, plain south-facing, 0.5 ha in total with some of the vines dating from 1932 – bought in 2016. These vines avoided the 2016 hail. ‘It’s an old plantation with 12,000 vines per hectare.‘ Now Jérémy has 4 hectares of vines in total…

The market for these wines is currently ‘okay’ with a new client in Belgium, the rest sold in France, though Jérémy is looking to diversify the client base a little more.

The wines…

Really excellent wines, once more…

2015 Julienas
Average 40-years-old vines, destemmed 70%, triage, 7 months in cement after about 12 days cuvaison. Apart from the destemming, ‘very classic and all manual.’ Bottled on June, not filtered. Started to commercialise in January. The classic cuvée here,
Hmm, attractive dark red fruit with even more attractive floral aspect. Round in the mouth, a little metallic edge to generous but fresh, fresh fruit – great line, a beautiful, intense mouth-watering mid-palate to finish here, saline, faintly spicy and really mouth-watering. Almost as delicious as the 2014 but structurally bigger – give it 6 months to 6 years – if you can!
2015 Julienas Patte de Velour
Old vine selection – up to 70 years old vines. 3 weeks of maceration, less than 25 hl/ha, pressed directly into in 4-5 year-old barrels used previously to make Cornas – no pumps. Elevage Bottled in October without filtration.
The first note seems pretty red, dry fruit but fresh and alive – certainly less flowers. A fresher, indeed silkier start, a background of creamy oak which I’ll try to ignore, really fine texture, a burst of mid-palate freshness and slight lushness, here with a little floral aspect. Really there is more concentration here and good line too, but this needs quite some more time vs the the last. It’s really tasty wine, but for the next few months/years, the classic is the one to drink – super. Really some differentiating minerality in the finish here.

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