Raphaël Chopin – 2015

28.3.2017billn

Tasted with Raphaël Chopin in Lantignié, 23 February 2017.

Raphaël Chopin
La Savoye
69430 Lantignié
Tel: +33 6 22 08 59 09
www.domaine-raphael-chopin.fr

Raphaël on 2016:
It was a strong vintage! A little less hailed here than Chiroubles, but still about 20-30% lost each time – so twice. Lots of rain of-course, but August and September saved us with fine and hot weather. Chiroubles is a great terroir but it’s steep and very hard to work without herbicides – so not what people wanting to do bio are looking for, so it’s not easy to sell either – 50-60 ha are currently looking for new owners…

Raphaël on 2015:
I did low temp fermentations – no more than about 23° – so the colours are less deep than at many places. I also did this with the 2016s too. My reasoning is that I want to keep the finesse, and really I don’t want clients to expect that I’ll make wines like 2015 every year! I also decided not to do any filtration in 2015.

The wines…

Another year, another nice selection of cuvées at this domain – and wines to age too. Raphaël puts a lot of thought into what he does.

2016 Beaujolais Villages
Trying to get a communal appellation here of Beaujolais-Lantignié – the long paper-trail is in progress!
Hmm, silky bright and fresh fruit – really attractive. Good volume and a nice layered delivery of quite good intensity fruit, just a few angles today, but really delicious.

2015 Beaujolais Villages Lantingnié
Ooh, that’s deep, Lovely fruit – a hint of powder. Layers and a delivery of intense flavour, more saline than the 2016, a hint richer and sweeter. Really wide in the finish slowly lingering flavour. Excellent!

2014 Regnie La Ronze
The name of the lieu dit. Schist and rosé granite here.
Ooh much finer, more focused red fruit – yum! More volume, more complexity, really a nice energy here and constantly changing flavour too. Vibrant, excellent wine. Bravo!

2015 Regnie La Ronze
Not the deepest but there’s a gorgeously silky dark fruit aromatic here. Bigger wine, more depth of flavour, more tannin associated too. Really layered flavour with still a good energy. This says wait! But its excellent anyway but best wait 5 years. Really a great persistence of flavour.

2014 Morgon Les Charmes
Near the Roman road, direction La Beche.
Here is a fresh nose, a hint of floral and pyrazine. Big in the mouth, very fresh, a little pyrazine here too, plenty of freshness and structure – here is baby wine, but with a fine line of persistent flavour. Certainly the most austere so far, but no problem, just a little patience needed. Nice red fruit in the finish – this will show some finesse I think… the nose just gets better and better – a really beautiful, pure and red, fruit!

2015 Morgon Charmes
A tight nose but also silky and with a fine and inviting fruit. Hmm, this is a luxury wine – tannin but warm, ripe fine tannin, plenty of saline accent to the fruit – it’s essentially still quite a mineral wine but with an added richness of texture. Great wine – obviously to wait for but bravo!
2012 Regnie Gaïa
La Ronze’s old vines (80-90 years) but made in the round tank of 10 hl – see photo – which looks like a large cement mixer that’s turned through 360° ‘maybe’ once per day for 12 days. Afterwards the elevage is in demi-muids of 500 litres.
Lots of volume to this nose – a little wood and certainly some flowers. Round – lots of volume – mouth-watering flavour, still, quite a lot of wood and some baseline of tannin – it’s fresh enough and the vanilla component is really not too high. But really a wine to wait for. The finish is impressive – a big burst of flavour. Wait 5 more years.

The following tasted from barrel:

2015 Regnie Caprice
Name of the cuvée. This from old vines in Laronze ‘but capricious wines!’ Elevage of 12 months in demi-muids of 500 litres – probably for bottling in March.
Deep colour. A quite tight nose, but with a fine clarity of dark fruit. A hint of gas, a hint (actually a bit more than a hint) of tannin. A wide and fresh palate of dark fruit flavours. Nice mouth-watering fruit on the finish. Tasty, young, relatively tannic wine today.

2015 Morgon Archambaud
Same idea for a March bottling
Dark colour again. Red fruit with an accent of oak. In the mouth this is nicely fresh and has a very direct personality. Melting oak flavour too, but the mid-palate onwards is layered and fine. A great finish – this heralds well.

2015 Regnie Gaïa
Transparent, a lovely nose of vibrance, perhaps a hidden reduction, but this is super-attractive. Really a fresh fruit, redder than many, the flavour is corrupted by the gas and the tannin, but there is a compelling purity/transparency in the middle here. Potentially grand vin! Bottling at the start of May.

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