hubert de Montille & Les 2 Montilles – 2014

Update 1.12.2015(26.11.2015)billn

DSC08302Tasted in Puligny-Montrachet with winemaker Brian Sieve, 19 October 2015.

Domaine Hubert de Montille
Rue du Cromin
21190 Meursault
Tel: +33 3 80 21 32 79
http://www.demontille.com/

Brian Sieve on 2014:
“2014, if not hit by hail, had the potential for quality and quantity. We started on the whites on the 9th September and reds about 13-14 September. The stuff that was hit by hail looked sad but at least we had the summer to rationalise it. Whites had good berry size and no maladies, the tough work was only for those hit by hail. Maybe a hint of dryness and slightly pruny flavours would be expected after the hail, but so far I’m surprised how crisp and crunchy the fruit is, even after the bright 2013s. Considering the growing season, there’s real concentration in the whites, they are generous and have no dominant acidit. But I’m surprised how good the reds are showing; we simply racked them and had to go off for the 2015 harvest, so we have almost ignored them for a few weeks, but they have an exciting freshness.”

The wines…

Here with the chance to also taste the ‘Deux Montilles’ négoce wines.

All the reds were racked once, sulfured in August, and afterwards returned to older barrels. Interestingly, quite a number of the (mainly) Côte de Beaune wines produced here with whole clusters show an aromatic element that makes me say ‘pyrazine’ but before you get excited, it’s not exactly like 2011 or 2004 though very similar in aromatic ‘texture.’ I really don’t think that you need to worry about it, and it’s anyway at the level of a small, additional note of aromatic (only) complexity – in such quantities, even if it persists through elevage, it’s quite nice.

2014 Deux Montilles, Rully
From a single parcel.
Round aromas, a little sweet but with a core of freshness. Round in the mouth too; faintly salty, a good core of concentration and tasty fruit. Slowly shrinking sweet fresh fruit in the finish – excellent!

2014 Deux Montilles, Montagny 1er Les Coères
A modest freshness over a bigger weight of white/yellow fruit. Lithe, fresh, lovely energy. This holds an impressive line of flavour in the middle of the palte. Excellent again.

2014 Deux Montilles, Chablis 1er Montée de Tonnerre
Wide and fresh – a layer of ripe yellow fruit below and a faint, welcome saltiness above. Direct attack, mouth-watering mineral attack – bravo! Lasting very well too – a great Chablis from the heart of the Côte de Beaune!

2014 Deux Montilles, Chablis 1er Fourchaume
More mineral. An up and down aromatic with virtually no width. Just a little gas prickles on the palate, but lithe mineral and with plenty of growing complexity. Great wine. More finishing weight, and it holds well too – excellent!
2014 Deux Montilles, Chablis Les Preuses
A direct, and clear as you will ever sniff, aroma of freshly squeezed lemon over salty freshness. A little shame that the gas is affecting the texture but here is a steely, direct wine without any padding and it’s beautiful.

2014 Deux Montilles, Saint Romain
Fresh and open above, tigter below. A little more roundness and seemingly concentration after the Preuses, but not the same steely intensity. Surprisingly super, depsite following the grand cru!

2014 Deux Montilles, Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Sous Fretille
Nice, slightly salty, fresh nose. Wide panorama on the palate of complex middleweight flavour. Again lovely.

2014 de Montille, Meursault Narvaux
A deep and wide nose, one that’s more suggestive than really delivering. A hint of gas but really a lovely texture and with a fresh, fine acidity beautiful in the mouth.

2014 de Montille, Meursault 1er Perrières
A little fresher, a deeper mineralty, but tigher aromatic width. Wonderful freshness and sweet energy, followed by a line of mouth-watering flavour. Less overt than Narvaux but with more obvious complexity. Yum!

2014 de Montille, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Caillerets
A little like the Perrières; here is a high and low-toned wine with more modest width – also just a faint reductive edge here. Again, beautifully textured wine, like they melt over your tongue, but actually there’s a little too much energy for that. A wide understated but very long finish with a hint of dry material in there too.

2014 de Montille, Corton-Charlemagne
In Pougets, over 1 hectare.
A narrow freshness that goes very deep, some complex high tones too. A little too much gas to discuss texture, but there’s a lot of concentration and intensity here – it’s super impressive in the finish. I expect this will be brilliant.

Les rouges

2014 Château de Puligny-Montrachet, Monthelie
Almost a natural wine here. Only 3g of sulfur used here, already in bottle.
Wide, red fruit, some mineral. Wide, a charcoal, mineral almost pyrazine style flavour note like the nose. Really wide and interesting in the mid-palate before closing again. A good interesting wine but one that needs to develop more focus.

2014 de Montille, Bourgogne
Fresher, classier (for me) aromatic with modest top notes and good depth. Width, energy and lovely intensity – long too – lovely Bourgogne.

2014 de Montille, Pommard Les Cras
1/3 whole clusters, 20% new oak.
A lovely width and complexity AND depth of aroma – super! A textured weight below and a fresher fruit flavour above. I’m finding this very appealing indeed. Yum!

2014 de Montille, Nuits St.Georges Aux Saints Julians
1/3 whole cluster and an interesting pyrazine top note. Lovely textured width, just a little drag from the tannin with almost a salty edge in the finish. A beauty!

2014 de Montille, Beaune 1er Sizies
A lovely complex fruit aromatic here – yum! Round and concentrated but with brio – maybe addagio too! Late arriving tannin is almost a surprise but a lovely sweetness here – excellent!

2014 de Montille, Beaune 1er Perrieres
1/3 whole cluster, about 20% new oak.
A depth of fruit but still with good freshness. Supple tannin right from the start but closer to a textural drag than real dryness. Then it melts to offer a width of really good fruit. This will need more time than the Sizes but I’d take the ride!

2014 de Montille, Beaune 1er Grèves
Nice top-note freshness, slightly with pepper – one third whole cluster, but you wouldn’t know. Fresh, wide, a growing tannin but this is a top-down, left-right ball of great wine – really great finishing too. Bravo!

2014 de Montille, Volnay 1er Champans
1/3 whole cluster like greves about 25% new oak.
A slightly discreet but prettily wide nose, hinting to floral aromatics. Ooh! that’s beautiful in the mouth – plenty of tannic texture but all is under control. Very yum indeed.

2014 de Montille, Volnay 1er Mitans
100% whole cluster yet is deeply coloured. ’45 year old vines that act as if they are 75 – just 25 hl in a good year!’
Wide, again a faint pyrazine. Really super-wide in the mouth, really intense and complex. Some tannin dryness but then melting into the finish. – ouf! Super!

2014 de Montille, Volnay 1er Taillepieds
Also whole cluster only, on a more gravel soil unlike most of the limestone and marl of Volnay ‘so different tension and salinity’.
A deep nose, again with a faint pyrazine impression. Very open above, very much more tannin-based below – but beauTifully transparent and pretty flavours above. A wine that really has its boots in the soil!

2014 de Montille, Pommard 1er Les Pezerolles
All destemmed – lost 40% to hail. Relatively young vines, under 35, so needs a vintage like 15 for whole cluster, where 1/3 was used.
Wide fresh and finely floral with a weight of fruit below. Lithe, and frankly beautiful in the mouth, superb clarity of fruit, with a weight of tannin that’s stopping it dancing today – but wait! I love this.
2014 de Montille, Pommard 1er Rugiens
1/3 whole cluster, 40% new oak here – the others are more like 25%
Wide and prettily fresh fruited above, tighter below. Here is a more executive texture, silkier despite a weight of tannin – wider and very complex – Bravo! Lingers on a very long note.
2014 de Montille, Nuits St.Georges 1er Aux Thorey
2/3 whole cluster and 50% new oak.
The first wine that suggests to me overt whole cluster use, though not in a negative/gothic sense, but from real perfume. Modest top notes and real depth here. Great energy, superb complexity of flavour with tannin, yet without really much dryness. The finish majors on texture but has a pretty fruit coating…

2014 de Montille, Corton Clos du Roi
100% whole cluster, 50% new oak.
Again a hint of pyrazine, kind of fresh yet a hint tight, flashes of fresh dark fruit. Ouf! This really fills the mouth. Lots of tannin below, but really impressive fruit here. Showing a width of mouth-watering flavour, faintly salted and mineral despite the fresh dark fruit.

2014 de Montille, Clos de Vougeot
The old Moillard plot, perfectly situated between the chateau and the chateau de la tour. One section hasn’t really recovered from the 09\10 frost and maybe replanted sooner rather than later. 100 whole cluster.
Slowly offers a pretty whole cluster aroma, but really it’s a little tight on the nose. But it gets prettier and prettier, adding violets and just something a little sweeter. A big, energetic weight of both texture and concentration, only slowly letting the fruit flavour through. Some whole cluster flavour – the first. Massive yet guarded. Be patient, be rewarded…

2014 de Montille, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Malconsorts
Directly a higher-toned, spicy aromatic, with flashes of fresh red fruit. In the mouth, a growing layer of very finely grained tannin, a different type of weight of flavour in the mid-palate, not so massive as the Clos de Vougeot but suggesting more intensity of flavour. I’m about to pick up the next glass when there’s fine reprise of flavour – ooh – yum! Nicely whole cluster flavoured.

2014 de Montille, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Malconsorts Christiane
About 10 barrels worth. Both of these Malconsorts’ vines and elevage are treated exactly the same, on the same day. About another 7 months of elevage is expected.
This nose starts more sullen – pretty, spicy top notes but little else to start. A similar experience to the previous wine except that there’s a higher level of sweetness and fruit intensity here. Both seem excellent…

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