Tasted in Beaune with Geoffroy Choppin de Janvry, 16 November 2016.

Domaine Albert Morot  
20 Avenue Charles Jaffelin
21200 Beaune
Tel: +33 3 80 22 35 39

Albert Morot was a negoce, but bought their own vines in late 1800s. Today they have 8ha but virtually only 1er Crus – seven in Beaune and one in Savigny-lès-Beaune. “We have good parcels, principally with old vines.”

Geoffroy on 2016:
“We were very lucky in 2016. We had just completed the majority of the ploughing before the frost arrived – we still lost 50 – I can’t imagine how bad it would have been if we hadn’t ploughed. In a normal year of bio I would make about 12 treatments per year, but this year it was 17 or more because of the mildew, but, at least for us, the main mildew attack was in Savigny.”

Geoffroy on 2015:
“2015 delivered roughly 28-30 hl/ha – which is not particularly low for us. That’s assuming our malos eventually finish! Then probably I will bottle in March, which is later than in 2014, but the 2015s have the richness and weight to shake that off.”

The wines:

Whole berries not whole bunches, “We have a very soft destemmer here since 2014.” Geoffroy say that he did a couple of whole-cluster tests in 2015, all the rest destemmed – he’s not a fan!

These wines were really quite late in their elevage – some 15s were still in malo when I visited – because of that my notes are at best cursory and transitory. I should really return in February or March give you better info…

2015 Beaune Dessus les Marconnets
A new wine. 0.1 hectare, no new oak – usually it’s 30% for the others.
Beautiful nose of dark, perfect fruit. More structured than the nose suggests but with depth of flavour and a little point of salinity. Opening wider in the finish. This has great potential.

2015 Pommard, La Rue au Porte
Really old vines. Still some malo.
Fresh, direct, clean flavoured. Showing great length and the tannin is modest for the label. This should be super!

2015 Beaune 1er Les Grèves
A tiny cuvée of 1.5 barrels. From 0.12 hectare.
Deep, complex dark fruit. Floral fruit in the mouth, good volume, very modest tannin but a fine mid-palate intensity of fresh flavour. Fine length.

2015 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er La Bataillière au Vergelesses
One third of this 1.8 hectare monopole, 0.6ha of which has been uprooted and planted with chardonnay.
Nose not opening. Palate, has a little wood but then a nice wide and quite fresh finish good length – but not showing its best…

2015 Beaune 1er, Cents Vignes
A little reduction but really a deep nose anyway. Plenty of tannin, still some malo texture. Lovely waves of finishing flavour here. A supple tannin I think…

2015 Beaune 1er Les Aigrots
1ha of vines, 1/3 of which planted to white
Ooh that’s deep, again faintly reductive. Fresh, some salinity, bright with fine focused fruit. Plenty of potential.

2015 Beaune 1er Toussaints
There are not many who label this…
Spicy and wider. Wide in the mouth too. Super energy, tension even, the finish is modest intensity but quite long, just a touch of tannin at the end. Lots to wait for…

2015 Beaune 1er Les Marconnets
North of Beaune, the top of the hill towards the autoroute. Old vines here.
Deep colour. Wide, faintly floral but not really ready. More gas but anyway fresher. Nice width of flavour, some tannin, but finishes very sell.