Tasted in Odenas with Boris Gruy, 08 February 2023.
Château de La Chaize
69460 Odenas
Tel: +33 04 74 03 41 05
www.chateaudelachaize.com
More reports with Château de La Chaize
Boris on 2022:
“We can be very happy – we had difficulties with fermentations though – the malos wanting to run before the sugars were finished but we love the shape and structure – 29 hl/ha – not terrible but could have been better. AB in this vintage!”
Boris on 2021:
“We weren’t frosted, probably because we don’t have so many vines on the top or the bottom of the hills – it’s windy – which is inconvenient to treat but very helpful in the case of frost. It was extreme in terms of rain – we were very happy to have got through that with only 3kg copper per hectare – our last year of conversion to organic. After triage about 32 hl/ha. We started our harvest in Fleurie – our lowest vines from an altitude perspective – starting on the 13th September with half a team (making a pied de cuve on the 8th) and then with the full team from the 14th. We warmed the fermentations at the end to about 30°C to ensure that the sugars were done and I think that helped to coat the tannins a little – to hide them. A hard year for the climate but these were wines that were easy to ferment and without deviations. We just did a couple of wines with whole clusters but mainly we destemmed – we find real Beaujolais distinctions between the wines in this vintage. They were bottled from June until the most recent which have been in bottle for just a few weeks – done in January. I think a vintage that was hard to find the right day to start harvesting – we did no chaptalisation. I’m not sure how they will age – but they do have very good balance.”
The current production is about 300k bottles per year and commercially “It’s going well – We have attacked the home market and we have about 20 ‘local’ agents around France which are already accounting for roughly 20% of our sales…”
The wines…
Except for (no surprise!) La Chaize, here for the first time are the bare-bones crus – no lieu-dits to be seen – but what a super range – wines with clarity, interest and deliciousness – and nothing green. A super result. With each successive harvest the old style of chunky, tasty wines has been replaced with precision and perfume – no mean feat given the volume!
All Trescasses NDtech for the higher wines, it will be DIAM for the ‘entry wines:’
2021 Fleurie
This year a blend of their three main areas: Champagne, Madone and Clos de la Chapelle des Bois
Broad, very perfumed – nicely concentrated – even a little graphite minerality. Supple, easy over the palate – such a wine of elegance but still with successive waves of far too easy to drink flavour. Top finishing – an extra intensity – simply an excellent, ultra-delicious wine.
Three different areas blended here. It’s the largest volume wine of the domaine.
A depth of aroma, darker fruit but with some vibrance of energy. Broad, silky, absolutely fine over the palate, little complexities, some cushion – fine balanced concentration – bravo – an easy but perfectly constructed and shaped wine – so good!
Not long in bottle. 2.5 ha – a small cuvée for here – mainly Corcelettes in 3 parcels close to each other.
Here is a more airy style – a graphite mineral style. Direct, but still super texture – a faint tannin here and the first wine with some creamy oak – but not ‘in your face’ – super finishing intensity. Just another perfectly fashioned wine, properly showing its roots – and the suggestion of oak will be gone in another 12 months – simply an excellent, wine, practically a great 2021.
2021 Côte de Brouilly
Normally a blend of just blue stone terroir, but this cuvée is a, practically, equal blend of granite and blue stone.
Higher tones – airy but lacking nothing of depth. Open, clean – more architecturally interesting, mouth-watering more insistent, lingering very impressively – not the same burst of finishing flavour but still the most chiselled wine. Frankly absolutely delicious again.
The vines behind the château – the oldest vines of the domaine here but together with low yields and too much black rot this parcel of 120-year-old vines is to be replanted.
Except for the volume – it’s not the largest nose – this is the most complete of aromas – round but with interest in all directions. Cool, mineral, fluid – less fruit forward – but with an ease and complexity that comes in tandem with the slowly increasing intensity. Super length. Choose the others if you like more fruity interest but I think that this will be equally great in 20 years – bravo.
And a blind wine for the road:
Tons of colour. Larger scale – certainly its width of aroma – slightly spiced dark fruit, almost blueberry and lots of interest. Hmm, there’s energy here despite the fruit of the nose being present in the flavour but sweeping flavour, rounder and becoming juicier and more intense. Finishing quite calm and even a hint mineral. Referring to the last wine – if you want fruit by all means go for this there is nothing overdone despite the shape, concentration and character. For the fruit, I was considering 2020 but the energy and fluidity of this presentation suggested 2019. It was actually 2020 Clos de Chaize everything by gravity with only foudre elevage a wine that’s never seen a pump or filtration. Vertical pressed, late bottled. You wouldn’t find anything near this quality from the Côte d’Or for under €75…