Tasted in Moulin à Vent with Brice Laffond, 12 February 2024.
Château du Moulin-à-Vent
4 Les Thorins
71570 Romanèche-Thorins
Tel: +33 3 85 35 50 68
www.chateaudumoulinavent.com
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More reports with Domaine Château Moulin à Vent
More reports with Domaine Roc des Boutires
2024 is the 100th year of the appellation MaV… A list of potential premier crus has already been agreed with the syndicate here and the ‘dossier’ has been agreed too – “It’s now 15 years since the soil analysis and the maps were done. Maybe it could still be 10 years to wait though!”
Brice on 2022 with some comparisons to 2023:
“22 was heterogenous based on various decisions of timings etc. but it’s a good vintage and with lots of differences between the wines. The 23s are good, more padded and easy to drink than the 22s I think. The whites are super but in both colours the window seems ever smaller to find the right moment to pick – it’s harder to find the pickers here too – so there’s always a little machine work – but the machines have optical triage and you can use them in the night when it’s too hot in the day… Like in 2020, we started to harvest quite early – on 29 August – finishing 10-12 days later. We had a bit of blockage and certainly there was some ‘maturity by concentration’ in a few places but we couldn’t have waited longer or we’d have been picking shrivelled grapes…
“35-36 hl/ha was our result in 2022 – we work to make 40-45 hl/ha but each year there’s a reason not to have it! But if we slowly get to 38 and then 40 we will be happy. We had more rain in 23, more regular rain, than in 22 which had a lot of rain in a couple of days in the summer but not much more… Just one 22 is bottled – done in December – and the rest will be done in March-April.”
The wines
Maybe the best I ever tasted here – and that’s saying something – bravo! One of my domaines of the vintage.
2021 reds and 2022 whites are the commercial vintages here at the moment.
2022 Château du Moulin à Vent, Moulin à Vent
The only wine produced here that’s an assembly of different terroirs around MaV
Hmm – plenty of colour. A round, dark-fruit nose that’s clean and faintly spiced – it’s very inviting! Direct, muscular, properly structured – dark flavoured – long with good finishing balance. Really long – this is one of the best ‘entry’ wines at the château for a long time.
Windy, hot and dry here with not much soil – a large part planted in the 1950s… They started the harvest here and used a lot of whole clusters – 60-70%…
Extra breadth and height to this nose, again with a faint spice that this time is tending towards tobacco and then more direct and clean with time in the glass – almost a little mineral. Silky, sinuous wine – ooh this is a step up – there’s fluidity despite the impressive concentration. Ooh – so early into this tasting yet already a grand vin – what finishing intensity and length – bravo!
2022 Château du Moulin à Vent, Moulin à Vent Champs Cours
Lower altitude, nearer the Moulin, still granitic, sandy, soil but with more depth and below 20cm with some clay.
A lighter, more fluid – airy – and floral nose, it’s very inviting. Large in scale, the fruit a little more red. Mouth-filling and intense at the same time, more a wave of finishing flavour – really wide and with an impressively granular – pixellated – finishing complexity. Almost as good as the last – and hauntingly long too!
2.5 ha all worked by horse – it’s a high-density plantation here – ‘I would lose too much time trying to work it with a tractor’
A more vertical nose – also finely perfumed – slowly widening further in the higher ones – lovely. Cool, properly fluid – but with an intensity of flavour behind – no shirking violet, no lack of concentration – but managed by the fluidity of delivery and the perfumed flavours – that’s another great wine, micro-grained with tannin – really broad and faintly tannic finishing. Bravo!
The last wine to be harvested this year but it’s the one with the most acidity…
Hmm, a cushioned aromatic and perhaps the most floral of all, so far. Large in scale – and the most classically 2022 (in a Burgundian context) of all with its overtly juicy flavour profile. The juiciness makes the finish more mouth-watering and perhaps a little more balanced but with less impact too. I think this a great wine too though stylistically it’s a bit different.
From Les Caves, very old vines with a lot of quartz in this plot.
A narrow nose – faintly smoky but only for a few seconds before the florals come centre-stage – clean, pure and very inviting. In the mouth, good volume with a small cushion to this texture. Also some almost juicy, mouth-watering style to the balance – really open, clean, more mineral yet still part floral finishing flavour – but holding… It’s less demonstrative but really, really classy today. Potentially a great wine too – the balance is beautiful.
From a high part in La Rochelle – their oldest vines from here – just 10 hl of this.
A more pronounced perfume here – real perfume. Supple, very broad, the texture slowly changing to velour as the tannin starts to show – but there’s virtually no grain to be found here. A faint licorice complexity in this long, long finish – wow wine. Amongst a group of wow wines!
Les Blancs of Domaine Roc des Boutires…
“All the whites have been bottled. 52 hl/ha on average for the vintage – a vintage that’s very different to 2021. We had good acidities – they had concentrated – and alcohols were not high a good part were harvested close to 12.5° and I only remember a little that was above 13°. The Bourgogne, the Mâcon-Solutre and the entry cuvées of the Chateau are sealed with DIAM. The Pouillys are still all with cork and some cuvées are with NdTech. If you try to save money on a cork it’s a catastrophe! For the whites we find DIAM makes the wines more austere at the start:”
2022 Bourgogne Blanc
From 2 vignerons in Blanot – both Mâcon-Villages but labelled as Bourgogne Blanc
A large scale nose with freshness and a little spiced pear. Direct, cool – but there’s breadth to this flavour too – ripe but not exotic. A hint saline and with an attractive mouth-watering finish. Delicious wine!
2022 Mâcon-Solutre
Domaine vines here.
Broader, more ripe yellow citrus fruit aroma, almost a suggestion of muscaté. Lots of energy, becoming juicy – a bundle of fun and delicious too. The finish widens further and holds very well – another delicious wine with a bit more finishing concentration…
2022 Pouilly-Fuissé
The ‘assemblage’ of multiple parcels – plenty on the lower slopes – all bar one on the Pouilly side, the other in Fuissé. Augmented with some contract fruit – a long-term contract here – since 2010.
More precision to this nose – a little less ripe too. Some gas today but this is open and complex. Again with a suggestion of salinity and fine, more fluid finishing width. Super PF!
2022 Pouilly-Fuissé La Granges Murgers
Vines that face the Rock of Solutre – more clay with gryphées, deeper soil – high terroir, similar to La Roche – later harvesting. Planted in the 1970s – so not the oldest vines here.
A vibrant nose, the fruit slightly golden but citrus. Really wide – panoramic – cool, fine textured and with a juicy finishing intensity. A beautiful finish – that’s a super wine!
Was once in the assembly cuvée, vines next to Bouthières – here the village of Pouilly…
Super purity – a more direct aromatic – I think it great – not large but great. Some gas, But here is intensity, concentration, cool fruit and overall – fluidity to bring the balance. I think that’s a great wine. – There, I said it 3 times!
2022 Pouilly-Fuissé Aux Bouthières
The largest parcel and oldest vines of this selection – about 70-years-old. Higher on the slope, more exposed, facing east, south-east, some clay that ‘sticks’ here but with small stones in. Elevage with 50% barrel. ‘Always lots of grapes – but small ones with very little juice!’
A little less direct but similarly open and pure – you can better see the floral aspect of this too. I have the impression of more width and concentration – there’s juicy energy and some minerality here too. Fine finishing intensity. Seemingly more powerful than the last but I still preferred that wine – it’s clearly excellent though.
2022 Pouilly-Fuissé Aux Chailloux
Plain south-facing, next to Bouthières. ‘Very old vines with a lot of millerandes, protected from the wind but we don’t see over-ripe here’
A very different style – we have a width of aroma and a more fruit stone style to the aroma. Super direct and intense – really great texture – a sweeping wine of intensity and textural class. Simply excellent wine again – yes!