Patrice Rion – 2015

Update 15.12.2016(8.12.2016)billn

dsc01908Tasted in Premeaux with Maxime Rion, 02 December, 2016.

Domaine Michèle et Patrice Rion
1 Rue Maladière
21700, Premeaux
Tel: +33 3 80 62 32 63
www.patricerion.com

Maxime on 2016:
“2016 was a deception, it looked a magnificent vintage, all in great shape, some pressure of mildew of-course. Still we have great grapes, but we could have had a great vintage in volume too. We had yields of about 10 hectolitres per hectare – so about 20-25% of a normal volume. Premeaux was very hard hit.

“1945 was last really heavily frosted around here, and even then the Clos St.Marc wasn’t particularly hit according to the old owners. Some places that always get frost didn’t this year and others that are often untouched lost almost everything this year – we have just 4 barrels worth from the Clos St.Marc. But it was easier to work a 100% frosted parcel than a mixed parcel, as everything is at the same stage.”

Maxime on 2015:
It’s really not a sunny vintage. In the grapes there are ripeness differences based on picking dates, but there’s no jammy sunny wines. The date of the harvest was really the most difficult choice to make in the whole vintage. The weather was good, also the forecast for the harvest, and there was no botrytis, so it was easy to keep waiting. We started the 5 September, between that and the 10th the maturity was massively different, but I prefer the wines of the first harvested grapes…

“I really tried not to extract in 2015, it was more of an infusion of the grapes. Everything was already there in the grapes… I really don’t regret that. I have the feeling that I loved the 2010s also but I tried to get more out of those grapes, maybe for that reason they are quite tight just now.

The wines…

The ‘small AOCs will be bottled before Christmas. Probably a classic racking in February for bottling in March or April for the rest.

Really one of the best cellars in Burgundy for 2015s – there, I said it!

2015 Bourgogne Pinot Noir
Racked into tank 2 weeks ago. Principally from the communes of Gilly and Chambolle with a little Côte de Nuits Villages.
Good colour. Wow – one of the most aromatic bourgognes on this tour – beautiful. Relatively silky, beautiful fruit, floral inflected, fine energy. Bravo!
2015 Bourgogne Bons Batons
Deeper, darker fruit, modest flowers but minerality too. Fresher, more open, a hint more sweetness. Today I’d take the previous nose and this palate. Excellent – and the last drops in the glass smell lovely!
2015 Côte de Nuits Villages
Mainly from Comblanchien. We don’t try to extract here, it’s usually a wine of finesse for earlier drinking – it’s a little more powerful this year.
Deep, fresh clean dark fruit – a great invitation. Dark fruit on the palate too a little more tannin, but supple, and faintly saline. Faintly mineral. Beautiful wine for the label…

The previous wines were assembled in tank – those reds that follow were sampled from barrel.

2015 Chambolle-Musigny
From three parcels, high, low and middle.
A touch less colour. A beautiful nose. Good volume, modest intensity but juicy flavour, finishing with a touch of tannin. Very fine!

2015 Chambolle-Musigny Les Cras
Domaine wine.
Deeper, a touch reduced but really a fine transparency. Silky, supple, freshly mouth-watering flavour. Very limestone, understated and complex until the finish – when pow! Great floral flavour – really something!

2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Charmes
For the last few years less oak on the Chambolles, now it’s 20-25%, before it was 30+, here some whole-clusters too. “It’s just the road that separates this Charmes from Amoureuses”
Vibrant, deep fruit – really a beautiful thing. Bright, very fresh, mineral, faint oak, but a large scaled not fat wine. Really complex, really great – to wait for though!

2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Gruenchers
No whole-clusters here.
Also great transparency – more red fruit. Fresh, saline, growing flavour complexity – dynamic and always interesting. Bravo!

So far freshness and complexity like d’Angerville!

2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Fuées
An extra depth of aroma, but fresh depth. A hint of reduction on the palate, fresh and energetic again. Really gorgeous flavours but only after the mid-palate – the length is special – understated endless complexity – bravo!
2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Amoureuses
Very pretty red fruited top notes. Slowly growing complexity too. Fresh again, not as large scaled as Charmes but with a more direct complexity here, almost some warmer spiced elements in the finishing flavours. Really a great finish – a wine of complexity, never power.

2015 Bonnes-Mares
One barrel, new.
Bright fresh, oak but spice not vanilla. Line, mineral, growing intensity, really a beautiful interpretation of the vintage here. 2010 with more power.

2015 Vougeot 1er Les Cras
Maxime notes that they do all the vineyard work here, then buy the grapes. ‘Great soil here, never heavy with plenty of small stones.’
A little more density of aroma – but fine red fruit here. Fine freshness of fruit, a step up in tannin – but it’s anyway very fine. Bright, gorgeous mid-palate to finishing flavour – with a floral touch. Lovely stuff, but it will require just a little patience.

2015 Nuits St.Georges
Principally from ‘Plateau’ near the Gouges winery, plus a small domaine parcel plus others bought in the same sector.
Deeper red fruit a little more muscled. Supple, plenty of saline tannin, slowly mouth-watering good flavour. Everything finely balanced, but it will need time to unfurl… and become delicious…

2015 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos des Argillières
The domaine is part replanting here as the vines are 65-70 years-old – they are doing it in stages. 30% whole clusters.
A touch of reduction, but a fine floral red fruit too that harks to the stems. A little gas, but fine flexing muscle, freshness of fine flavour, underpinned with tannin, yet very fine-grained. This is seriously great stuff – brilliant flavour in the finish – you will need to let the tannin reduce, but this will be great. Bravo! there is great finesse here for the modestly patient – 5 bottles of this for 1 Amoureuses – it’s a funny world! – and that encapsulates all that is currently wrong with the market for burgundy wine.
2015 Nuits St.Georges 1er Clos St.Marc
Relatively modest colour. High tones, slowly adding more depth. A little oak spice. Here is a different dimension if texture – such silky tannin. The flavour is fresh and also bound up with the silken texture. Subtle in intensity of length, but oh so long… another great wine I think!

Et le Blanc…

2015 Nuits St.Georges 1er Les Terres Blanches
Quite a large aromatic, suggesting richness but it’s also fresh and a little saline – I really don’t know what I’m going to find on the palate. It’s large-scaled, certainly with a richness of flavour but the wine is fresh powerful and quite complex too. Really a great line of flavour into the finish with good length too. This is never my favourite white at the domaine, but it really does have style this year. Super!

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