Tasted in Fleurie with Joseph Bouchard, 13 February 2018.

Château Poncié / Villa Ponciago
Lieu-dit Poncié
69820 Fleurie
Tel: +33 4 74 69 83 33
www.villaponciago.fr

Joseph on 2017:
In 2017 the hail came quite early and it didn’t damage the wood so pruning was okay. The vintage has great quality, but there is not much – we made 25-30% of normal vintage.

Joseph on 2016:
“It’s a good vintage, though hard in the vines, with lots of rain and hail too – fortunately we were hardly impacted on this side of Fleurie – we were very lucky – we look down on the village of Fleurie and it was crushed by the hail, but up here we had virtually none – just in a couple of parcel – we made our expected yields. July and August brought nice weather, despite a few storms we had a good maturity for us. So, it was a difficult spring and a nice summer and we stared to harvest a little later than in Beaune – the 26 September for the chardonnay, finishing about 10+ days later. We used fewer harvesters this year, we went slowly, choosing to follow the maturity. ”

Joseph notes “We are turning the whole domaine bio it will take three years, maybe a couple of steeper parts could take longer, but if so, so be it – it will be worth it. I’m planning to have AB on all the labels in 5 years – it’s a big challenge as we have a lot of hectares. We have made over 50 soil studies to understand what we have and what we must do… It’s a nice adventure…”

The wines…

This is easily the best set of wines I’ve tasted chez Poncié – well done. No sulfur used at all for the start of the elevage – it’s not guaranteed to be like this every year, but it’s worked very well for them in 2016 – and 2017 too, apparently.

Still the label depends on the market – Villa Ponciago or Chateau de Poncié – as usual here we taste the Château labelled wines. DIAM⁵ for everything.

2016 Beaujolais Villages Blanc Grand Lamure
“From the back of the hill of Mongenas which was planted with gamay but we saw that there was much more clay than other parcels and we thought it a cooler place than most so we decided to make a change here – we started with 1 ha and now have 2. Maybe it’s not yet finished. So far only making 30 hl/ha and so far it’s always been the first parcel harvested” – this would be Fleurie if it was still planted with gamay. Very little sees barrel aging, most in tank. This was the first parcel converted to Bio and it’s planned to have it on the label from the 2019 cuvée.
Depth, a nice freshness and some modest toasty aromas. Supple, the depth and fat of Beaujolais blanc but there is a little extra flavour here that points towards deliciousness. Long finishing with a hint of salinity. This is very tasty. For less than €10 this is very good indeed – though there’s not much of it.

2016 Fleurie Le Pré Roi
An assembly of parcels from around the chateau and domaine buildings. All harvested in small cases as would be done in Beaune, then a triage table then anywhere between 30-50% is destemmed.
A deep nose, some high tones but it’s tight, it needs to open its arms a lot more. Supple – beautiful texture – wide and growing in mouth-watering flavour, some salinity and a fine salt and pepper complexity. Behind is a broad and pure fruit – really super!

2016 Fleurie La Salomine
From 300-400m of altitude, south, south-east facing. Light soil, very sandy old vines, goblet, – 32 hl/ha in 2016 – 2/3rds of the last wine. 12-15 days of elevage with pigeage – 1-2 per day at the end, it’s remontage at the start only very low sulfur – many tanks without for the start of vinification. Malo and elevage is all done in barrel – maximum 10% new – normally 5-6 wines before chez BP&F. Normally the latest parcels harvested due to the altitude.
Tight but at the same time with some aromatic volume – not showing many ‘hooks’ to describe. Ooh – this goes deeper, again beautifully silky, deeply fruited, layers – still open and giving – there’s a transparency here that is super-engaging. Slowly adding the salinity of the last wine in the finish. A relatively luxurious wine but not lacking any balance. Excellent!