Tasted in St.Philibert with Jérémy Recchione, 08 March 2017.
Maison Jérémy Recchione
1, route de Saint Philibert
21220 Gevrey Chambertin
Tel: +33 6 86 56 22 87
http://jeremyrecchione.fr/
It was the though that went into Jérémy’s wonderful labels that first attracted me to his work and pushed me to find out a little more. Jérémy works for Domaine Pierre Naigeon, but Pierre also allowed him the space to do his own thing too – at one stage Pierre, Jérémy and Mark Haisma all worked out of Pierre’s facility in St-Philibert at the same time.
“My first vintage, alone, was in 2013 but I’ve been working with Pierre since 2012. I make harvesting with my own team, collecting the grapes in small cases. Triage done in the winery. I like to use mainly whole-clusters, but that depends on cleanliness of the vintage of-course – I like the profile and the mix of freshness and structure that the stems bring. I cool the grapes first, before the onset of fermentation. I’ve 2-3 week fermentations, without chaptalisation when possible – so most vintages since i stated! Only pigeage, no remontage – the only destemming is just to help the fermentations get underway. I don’t heat at end of fermentation, I just let them slowly coll to about 25°C, protected by the natural CO2 and then press. I’ve a tiny press, about 2 barrels worth, and I assemble the press wine with free run, allowing the wine to ‘debourbe’ naturally. Then into barrels between November and December.”
Jérémy also worked in Meursault before moving to work with Pierre; “It’s been great to see the differences between the villages in pinot in the last years, and it’s for that reason that I’m not interventionist, I like to see these differences – I don’t want to modify the wines.”
Probably because of his previous experience, there are also whites in his range – Chardonnay and aligoté. “I make a direct press of the Meursault grapes, do the debourbage cold and then fermentation in barrel – 12-18 month elevage. I like freshness and tension in the wines. My fermentations are below 20°C normally. No additions of yeast or chaptalisation.”
Jérémy mainly exports his wines, explaining “France is complicated for new names – people look first at price, not the quality, so I mainly sell to export markets.”
The wines…
Jérémy will start bottling in the next couple of weeks – 5 appellations in Burgundy – but he sells only about 2,000 bottles per year – so far.
2015 Gevrey-Chambertin Creux Brouillard
Next to les crais
Not a deep colour – at lest not for 2015! Wide, and with the fine rose-style perfume of whole clusters. Good volume in the mouth, lots of freshness, layers of flavour. Good texture. This is lovely wine, and with a good line of finishing flavour, faintly and interestingly bitter. Really a fine wine with a proper Gevrey structure despite its silky demeanour. Yum!
2015 Fixin 1er Les Hervelets
Just one barrel.
Similar to the last – it’s a perfumed nose of whole-cluster style roses. Fresh, incisive, growing in intensity, a base of tannin like the last wine, but without aggression. Still a hint of gas here, but layers of finishing flavour. Long, long, long again with fine mouth-watering notes and faint barrel bitterness. Excellent!
And Les Blancs:
There’s no aligote in 2015. Jérémy says “I love the tension of St.Romain in 2015 – it’s different of-course and I chose not to acidify and make something ‘not correct’ for the vintage.”
Vines worked by horses, parcels next to Pellans in Meursault. Only one barrel.
A modest yellow colour, and you would assume, blind, that this was a nice nose of a Meursault – I would anyway. Hmm, this is lovely in the mouth – there’s really a silky texture but there is a lithe muscle to this fresh and tasty wine – some salinity and fine of line. Really excellent! Fine finishing flavour…. a small Meursault for sure.
2015 St.Romain La Come Bazin
Virtually no batonnage.
A nice big nose of fresh and ripe lemon-yellow fruit. More volume in the mouth, really a big wine, but with a mouth-watering, faintly saline style. Richness of flavour but never over-done. A very nice freshness to the finishing flavour and almost a finishing tannin too. Delicious!