Tasted in La Chapelle de Guinchay with Charlotte Perrachon, 23 February 2023.

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

Charlotte on 2022:
“22 was better than 21 – just! In terms of volume I don’t have a lot – it’s better than 21 for volume but it was the dryness, particularly in Chénas, that caused us problems – we have lots of stones, gallets, that hold the heat and in what was anyway a hot vintage – we had lots of grapes the year after the frost of 21 but they were just so tiny – so not a lot of juice.”

Charlotte on 2021:
“We had a lot of frost, up to 70% losses in Chénas and in Moulin à Vent – the higher parcels were less bad but not the lower. The more precocious parcels were quite badly affected – it was nearly a half harvest. So we made fewer cuvées and those that we did make have been largely sold so we have needed to start some bottling (white and rosé) from the 22s earlier than normal for us. It was a vintage we destemmed a lot as we were afraid of green flavours and made only very soft macerations – a grill to keep the cap submerged with some remontage.”

The wines…

A shortened tasting as hardly any 2021s remain at the domaine – but good tasty wines – which will benefit for a year or two before drinking – the white is a little gem in 2021!

2021 St.Amour Côte de Besset
The most on altitude – 2.65 ha in Bousset lieu-dit top left.
A small note of gentian here – more forward than the fruit. Round, supple nice in the mouth despite a little dryness from the tannin – a friendly wine and a tasty one too – just note the ‘gentian.’ Keeep it a year for the structure to become more supple.

2021 Chénas Le Clos
More elevage and a little more extraction during fermentation. All the vines around the château – effectively a monopole. Harvested a bit later than the last wine and use grill during fermentation for about a dozen days with a daily remontage. Only bottled in December.
Cleaner, lovely fruit – that’s a lovely nose. There’s power and volume to this wine – again with some tannic support – very small grained. Here’s a very good wine – also requiring a year (or more!) of patience.

2021 Juliénas Vieilles-Vignes
There are about 10 different parcels in this – Juliénas the historic home of the family – Croix Rouge and Capitains are the main sources though.
No gentian but a small reduction – but with air there’s a super perfume. Mouth-filling, rounder, still with a fine grain of tannin – but this is the most attractive of all these (so far) today – keep again – but this will be an excellent wine – such a fine perfume!

2021 Moulin à Vent Le Petit Brennay
Also a late (December) bottling. The 2020 is not yet sold out of this one.
Plenty of colour. Also a tiny reduction today – becoming more and more perfumed with air. Cool, the most fluid and mobile over the palate. The structure of the vintage here – all of these wines will benefit from at least one year of patience – but the finish is energetic and complex – practically delicious. Another potentially excellent wine.

Les White: