Tasted in Bligny-lès-Beaune with Pierre Meurgey, 07 June 2022.
Domaine Clos de la Chapelle
Au Château – 14 Grande rue
21200 Bligny-lès-Beaune
Tel: +1 816 223 0257
www.closchapelle.com
More reports with Clos de la Chapelle
Pierre on 2021:
“2021 is the third consecutive ‘small’ vintage – roughly 15 hl/ha – so we have lost nearly 2 harvests in the last 3 years – not helped by new plantings that are often not yet in production. ”
Pierre on 2020:
“20 years ago the good domaines were brave; waiting to harvest. Today the good domaines are brave because they are prepared to go early! In 2020 we were surprised as we saw plenty of grapes. We started harvesting 18 August and finished on the 27th with our Corton-Charlemagne. Alcohols mainly above 13.5° but not much more. Despite plenty of grapes we really had a paucity of juice in this vintage. We had done some green harvesting in some parcels in July – we regretted that a little afterwards! The wines are all bottled – since mid-February – and most are sold as the distribution is going better than the production!”
The wines…
Consistently, highly impressive wines from this domaine – it’s just such a shame that there has been so few bottles produced over the most recent vintages.
2020 Beaune 1er Les Teurons
0.27 ha.
Impressive weight yet still with freshness of aroma – becoming rather perfumed in an older woman perfume style. Mouth-filling with super purity of fruit – cushioned and generous. Lovely acidity too – simply excellent.
2020 Beaune 1er Champs Piments
0.63 ha
Similar fruit aroma but less generous – the aromatic shape showing more direct and structural – good – slowly growing with a similar perfume! Like the nose, sleeker, more direct and structural – more strict. I like strict! Really large finishing and holding so well… Also excellent but a style more to my preference than the Teurons…
Just below the chapel, same height and exposure as Champans. 0.35 ha planted about 1960. Some brown clay, lots of small rocks on reasonably deep soil. All destemmed as usual.
More Champs Pimonts than Teurons in shape with a more airy and attractive perfume. Wider, incisive, velvet texture, clarity of flavour. Bravo – small bitters and very long!
2020 Volnay 1er Cru
100% the young vine harvest from Taillepieds – harvested 18 August.
A more vertical nose and quite an incisive one at that. Vibrant flavour – open and mouthwatering. Beautiful finishing with a caressing mouthwatering style. That’s simply excellent and the wine that, so far, I would most like to drink today.
2020 Volnay 1er Taillepieds
Much, much lighter soil. Much stonier too. ‘Totally different – 50m higher in elevation with multiple types of limestone. 0.47 ha.’ About 30% of their surface in Taillepieds is this older parcel
Wider, softer, a little riper. In the mouth more incisive and structural than even the previous wine – that’s very impressive – perhaps a suggestion of pyrazine in the complexity – but what finishing complexity! There’s a chance of a great wine developing here – it’s already great in parts!
2020 Volnay 1er Clos de la Chapelle
Bought in two lots by Victor Boillot in 1865 and them 1870. The Lavalle map of 1855 shows this contiguous with the next vineyard – Pitures – but this is 1m higher and the wall is there, so Mark isn’t sure. Here a lighter, browner, as opposed to redder soil vs En Chapelle. Also planted between the mid-1950s and early 60s. The cabotte is now renovated though seemingly with more paperwork needed than for planting a vineyard! This clos extends to 0.55 ha or 13.2 ouvrées. ‘Slightly higher elevation chalkier with more limestone, really those are the elements that I think you can taste in the mid-palate. Here the vines run east-west.’
Here is still freshness but more a width of aroma than direct – easier aroma to assimilate – more airily perfumed. Very perfumed flavours here – the fruit taking second-place to the forward perfume. Cliché classic, beautiful, Volnay.
On the border of Volnay and Pommard. Old-vines, 0.25 ha from 1930 that delivered 45 hl/ha despite their age. ‘It’s a mystery this vineyard – we see fragility with some court noué but the vines keep producing super fruit – it’s a treasure here.’
Less aromatic volume, a more mineral style to this nose but slowly offering a great perfume – such a great nose. Structural but nothing hard, incisive, mouth-watering, almost cascading, with flavour – undoubtedly great wine!
Staring with a faint reduction but also a fine clarity of aroma – even after the Chanlins – and like the others, only 2 minutes is required for the perfume to start rising from the glass – yes! More mouth-filling, showing its structural tannin a little more – velvet in texture. A pure beam of finishing flavour – juicy and long. Excellent, also potentially great wine but just a step behind the Chanlins today…
2020 Corton Bressandes
There’s no Rognets anymore – part of the separation with Champy – but the domaine got a little more Beaune Reversées which has already been replanted to white – 0.18 ha worth.
Broad, certainly less incisive – there is a lot here but the aromatic clarity is less at this stage. This is just so welcoming in the mouth – a little roundness and such a broad perspective of shape and flavour – beautifully complex finishing. Really an impressive length too – this will be excellent.
And les Blancs…
“No crushing for the whites and we hyper-oxidise, no sulfur for 48 hours. Still all cork used here. Less than half a harvest in 2020 whites:”
2020 Beaune 1er Reversées Blanc
A nose of volume and perfume – that’s a good invitation. Ooh, I like the slightly strict structural style here but this is mouth-filling and growing more and more vibrant – far from a simple round and easy white Beaune – here is character – excellent – and there are some tenacious and interesting bitters that add some tannic texture too!
A tiny plot of just 3 ouvrees – 0.12 ha. ‘Our mini Corton-Charlemagne’ – it has the same elevation and you can see one from the other…
More overtly mineral at the base of this aroma, also with finely perfumed higher tones – just an occasional flash of barrel too. Direct, silky, extra mineral. My kind of wine – except I would wait 2 years for the creamy barrel aspect to fade – great, classic PV!
2020 Corton-Charlemagne
From the Pernand side in En-Charlemagne – Mark particularly looking for leaner, more angular rather than riper style – ‘Because you can’t do that in Montrachet. We don’t pick late, we use a Champagne-style, short, 3-3.5 hour press of whole clusters. Debourbage overnight with an early morning racking into barrel with plenty of lees. Once per month batonnage after malo, until about 2 months before bottling. This is always our last picked vineyard’ – west, north-west positioned.
Starting not so open but clearly mineral and perfumed. Yes – structural, chiselled, impressively shaped wine – also the minerlaity, the clarity of flavour, the purity are clear for all to see – no obvious accents from the barrel in this case. That is already excellent Charlemagne – and it will improve! Wait 10 years for best effect – I love the juicy burst of finishing flavour here!