Le Corton of Bouchard Père – A Vineyard Profile

27.10.2022billn

Le Corton
Le Corton, visited with Fred Weber, Summer 2022…

High on the hill of Corton, facing directly to the east and highly visible from the Route Nationale sits the area of Le Corton.

This area of vines has long been easy to point out because of the large tree and the building that sits next to it. For almost 2 years now, it’s been extra visible due to a large, 3-hectare, portion of this climate which has been cleared in preparation for replanting. Of course, this is the semi-monopole climate of Domaine Bouchard Père et Fils – more on that later – Bouchard being the third-largest owner of vines on the hill of Corton, after the Latour family and Bonneau du Martray.

In a 1909 purchase of nearly 8 hectares (including some Savigny 1er cru Les Lavières) the Bouchards bought nearly 7 hectares in Le Corton area from another local family – half planted to white – bottles of 1919 Le Corton are the oldest still in Bouchard’s cellar. This was the last ‘large’ vineyard purchase by the family and it is a single block of vines which are largely enclosed with stone walls – actually, across all their holdings, the domaine has 10km of stone walls that they need to maintain, so have a dedicated stone-mason in the group. For 15 years now, they have been working in an ‘organic style’ and are ‘currently close to certifying,’ says their technical director, Fred Weber.

The vineyard(s)

Whilst Le Corton may be a single climat on the hill of Corton, Bouchard are ‘only’ majority owners as there are about 11.5 hectares of vines in this location. Given that the other domaines (such as Louis Latour, Poisot, Doudet) choose only to make Corton-Charlemagne, the Bouchard domaine has a quasi-monopoly for the label of Le Corton i.e. for red wine.

Bouchard Père Le Corton & Charlemagne
Map from Bouchard Père et Fils

3.65 Hectares of Corton-Charlemagne
The domaine’s Corton-Charlemagne is a single block of vines at the top of their Le Corton parcel; bordered to the south by the climat of Les Languettes and to the north by Rognet et Corton. These, north-south trained, chardonnay vines occupy a broad band of limestone-based soil from the tree line down to the vineyard road – which bisects Le Corton – and include the tree and the building at the centre of this area of chardonnay. Fred Weber laughs, “Theoretically we could write Corton-Charlemagne Le Corton on our labels but maybe we might confuse people! We already have 120 different climats in our, roughly, 130 hectares. Come to think of it we could write ‘Clos’ too as we have the walls!

There is grass planted between the vines in these higher rows in order to reduce the impact of erosion – but it also creates competition for water in these higher vines. Though frost was the principal problem in 2021 where only 5 hl/ha in both colours was the result!

3.55 Hectares of Le Corton
The domaine’s Le Corton sits below the vineyard road – bordered to the south by the climate of Clos du Roi and to the west (below) and north by Les Renardes. This area has deeper soil versus that above – roughly 80-100cm deep – and is deeper coloured because it contains more iron in the clay that sits above the limestone bedrock – Fred explains that this limestone brings some extra elegance to their Corton. The vines here are east-west planted with vine ages that range from 1970s plantings to 2000. A part here is prepared for replanting; “We took out some vines from 1956 then left the ground to recover by just growing some cereals which are then ploughed back into the ground. This plot will be managed like this for 2 years before we replant with vines. Then, for anything up to 10 years, the wine is really just Bourgogne standard so, of course, doesn’t go into the main wine.

The wines…

Tasted at the Château de Beaune in summer 2022:

2019 Le Corton
A great vintage, very warm – probably too dry in the winter but 300 hours of sun in the summer which is unusual – some summer storms allowed high maturity but still good acidity that had been concentrated in the millerande berries – you can compare with 2005 but for me I recall 1949.
A powdery nose, slowly with redder fruit. Wash the glass (oops!) and here is perfume – it’s lovely. Mouth-filling but with energy and silk – slowly growing with a grain of tannin, wide but still with plenty of lithe muscle – the finish is herby today but so persistent and very complex. Impressive more that beautiful today but I really am impressed…

2018 Le Corton
This time double the normal winter rain than average but with a very hot summer yet no drought. The yields were more generous – like in 2009 in profile with generosity with lots of juice. Less whole cluster here – 10-15%. 30 August harvest.
The nose here has more clarity with darker fruit. A fuller, juicier, silkier wine. Lots of energy – much more in place than the 2019 today – the finish is wide and holding, eventually haunting. That’s a really excellent Corton…

2005 Le Corton
‘For us the perfect vintage – we had nothing to do.’
A broader nose, some development but not too much – airy perfume. Architecturally shaped, beautifully silky, the complexity of faint menthol and some espresso – great wine!

2019 Corton-Charlemagne
East-facing but high, we like high maturity we look for the golden colour on the grapes – a maximum of 20% oak so you don’t lose the terroir – it was a challenging vintage as lots of alcohol and less acidity in general.
A subtle but bubbling width of aroma growing with an acacia and honey style but in an airy and fresh style too. Ooh – now that sits very comfortably on the palate – slowly moving and melting over the tongue. A little agrume and then again a little honey. Great finishing with a large refreshing citrus wave and some citrus bitters to remember it by. A great 19… I simply can’t see the 14.5°…

2018 Corton-Charlemagne
A very generous year, so in June and July we did some green harvesting and didn’t de-leaf to protect the grapes from the sun.
Not so wide but with extra higher and lower tones. Wider, more fluid, higher intensity, then comes the finishing wave of citrus intensity again. Super persistent and a super wine.

2005 Corton-Charlemagne
Deep, vibrant, nobly reductive, the last accents of some oak – top! Like the red, architecturally shaped, hyper-silky, with a great weight of finishing flavour – here is a finish with some extra creaminess of oak but minerality too. Grand Vin!

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