Tollot-Beaut – 2014

Update 26.11.2015(11.11.2015)billn

DSC08251Tasted in Chorey-lès-Beaune with Nathalie Tollot, 14th October, 2014.

Domaine Tollot-Beaut & Fils
Rue Alexandre Tollot
21200 Chorey-lès-Beaune
Tel: +33 3 80 22 16 54

Nathalie on 2015:
“2015s are just about in barrel, the fermentations were slowish as there’s high alcohol. The harvesting was 2-7 September. We bought an optical triage machine last year – typical – it wasn’t needed this year! Minimum 14° for sugars as there wasn’t much water in the grapes. We acidified a couple of cuvées, but less than 2003 – the balance of 2015 is better – these 15s will be less compact I think. My uncle, who’s 70, said he’d never seen grapes like these – there were many dead, roasted berries in 2003, but not in 2015. Unfortunately it’s our 6th vintage that has been low volume…”

Nathalie on 2014:
“2014 I find to be a nice vintage; it tastes normal, no lightness due to rain, no taste from hail – the storm was less violent than in 2013 – we had very little from Savigny in 2013. Not an extraordinary vintage, but a good one. It was hard work during the growing season but the results are good, helped by our first use of the optical sorting in this vintage. We had a new destemmer too, one that doesn’t break the berries – keeping them whole so there’s much less juice from broken berries.”

The wines…

Racking was mid-July for all. 25% new oak for the Bourgogne and Chorey. ‘Wines will become more serious as the cellar cools,’ notes Nathalie.

2014 Bourgogne Rouge
Made from two parcels that total 3 hectares, all from Chorey-lès-Beaune. A part had previously been classified as ‘Chorey’ before being reclassified as Bourgogne in 2006.
Impressive weight and width to the nose. Floral too. Sweet, silky, with a slowly growing tannin texture but modestly grained and no astringency. Agreeable and pleasurable.

2014 Chorey-lès-Beaune
Chorey always vinified as north and south cuvées separately, and blended when time to bottle. 6 hectares represented by this cuvée.
There’s a good basketful of dark red cherries here. Fuller, more concentrated wine after the bourgogne. Just a little richness of texture but very good flavour – tasty wine that today hints at a little bitter chocolate (wood tannin) in the finish… Fresh and very tasty…

2014 Chorey-lès-Beaune Piece du Chapitre
2 hectares in the North of Chorey.
Brighter and deeper – more aromatic amplitude but very fine cherry fruit, still. Starts very silky before the base of tannin exerts itself – cooler ripe fruit that’s floral inflected – no grain to the tannin, just a little drag. Excellent.

2014 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Les Lavières
1 ha of old vine from a 1942-1943 planting has been cleared for replanting as there was never much to harvest.
Wide, a hint spicy, more limited depth and clear, clean fruit. Texture and concentration, primary it yet seems to offer a wave of flavour. Lovely width of finishing flavour too – this is showing rather young, but despite that, rather impressively too.

2014 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Champs Chevery
50% new oak.
Wide, deep aromas, impressively so. Deeply flavoured wine this, super flavour too that ingrains itself into the tongue. A beauty – really a wine with more presence.

2014 Beaune 1er Clos du Roi
From 1 hectare of vines in 2 parcels.
Wide and deep, if not the aromatic weight of some. But there’s complexity here. Bigger, supple, fully concentrated, but sweet round and approachable. A more serious base of structure here – finely grained but with a suggestion of oaky bitterness today. Very easy to forget to spit – I did!

2014 Beaune 1er Les Grèves
7 barrels from 0.5 hectares.
A wildly beautiful nose. Dimensions of sweet fruit in the mouth an underlying seriousness that’s not allowed to become too serious. Lovely, lovely wine. Balanced enough despite obviously ripe fruit.

2014 Aloxe-Corton
An assembly of four different parcels of vines, adding up to 2 hectares.
A less deep but much wider aroma. Fine discrete fruit notes. Fresh, fleshy, yet very supple, cooler fruit yet finely ripe. Not too big a wine – very pleasurable.

2014 Aloxe-Corton 1er Les Vercots
Twelve years ago half of this vineyard was replanted with a massale selection, the old vines were pulled out between 2012-2013 and replanted this year. A ‘très fin’ selection, with longer clusters so the grapes touch much less..
Wide, wild, a little touched by the spicy barrel on the nose. Plenty of tannin here and a very pretty fruit trying to extract itself. In the finish it achieves that in mouth-watering style. Certainly more serious than the villages, and to wait for too.

2014 Aloxe-Corton 1er Fournières
Bigger, rounder nose of primary ripe fruit. Slowly widening cherry notes too. More weight, energy and density of fruit. The tannin makes a grab for your gums in the mid-palate. Mouth-watering length here that really majors on the fruit – this is showing excellently, widening beautifully on the palate…

2014 Corton
From Les Combes (Aloxe).
A fresh width despite ripe fruit. Here is some muscle to go with the fruit and structure. Almost a little mineral in the middle – but nicely round in the mouth. A lot of flavour in the finish yet seems tighter than the Aloxe.

2014 Corton-Bressandes
A really complex nose – probably the first of floral and fruit, maybe something mineral too – yum! More lithe, more direct but with fine complexity and seems a little easier to drink, despite the rounder aspect of the last wine.

Agree? Disagree? Anything you'd like to add?

There are 3 responses to “Tollot-Beaut – 2014”

  1. Simon28th December 2015 at 9:18 amPermalinkReply

    Hello Bill: Did you taste the 2014 Savigny-lès-Beaune village here? Or only the 1er crus?

    • billn28th December 2015 at 11:15 amPermalinkReply

      Hi Simon
      Just checked my original notes and, no, it wasn’t offered to taste.
      Cheers!
      Bill

  2. Simon28th December 2015 at 9:35 pmPermalinkReply

    Thanks Bill. I was curious because the importer here in the Netherlands stated in his blurb for 2012 that the village was somewhat upgraded by addition of 1er cru grapes from old vines with a very limited yield. Maybe those from the hectare of the 1942/43 planting now being replanted? As his website states for the 2013 edition (my translation): “The grapes of the old vines of the Premier Crus have been added – due to the limited yield – to the normal Savigny. This gives it its considerable additional concentration. (Druiven van de ouwe stokken van de Premier Crus zijn door de beperkte opbrengst van de jaargang toegevoegd aan de ‘normale’ Savigny. Dit zorgt voor een enorme concentratie.) http://www.colaris.nl/wijnen/rood/savigny-les-beaune-2013-domaine-tollot-beaut (There’s a Robert Parker note at the bottom on the 2013).The importer’s note was similar for the 2012 as for his note for 2013 as I recall.

    I bought the 2012 village via the importer from this Domaine (36 bottles) and it is starting to come around – but needs another year at least to round out to a more agreeable glass in my opinion.

  3. Simon28th December 2015 at 9:44 pmPermalinkReply

    Additional note: Curious to learn if the 2014 edition of the village was aided by the last hurrah of some old vines.

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