Tasted in Fixin with Amélie Berthaut, 19 November 2019.
Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
9 Rue Noisot
21220 Fixin
Tel: +33 3 80 52 45 48
www.domaine-berthaut.com
More reports for Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
Amélie on 2019:
“We have 18 hectares here now but the space in the cuverie hasn’t grown in the last years. I’m lucky not to have a full crop in 2019 as I would have had to sell some grapes!”
Amélie on 2018:
“In 2018 everyone is happy! 2018 has lovely quality and really needed no triage table. Magnificent grapes but a hot vintage so it was hard work. So we always brought in the best grapes in the morning 😊 those that came back were then cooled too. Clearly a very different vintage – all have been so different since My first in 2013. The sugars rose very fast, but you Can’t do much as the grapes didn’t taste so ripe – it was about balancing sugar, acidity and phenolic maturity. 2018 has okay red yields, less than in 2017 but no complaints, unlike for 2019!”
The wines…
Amélie has some ethereal wines towards the top of her range, but for the first few wines, I think the her 2017s were greater – this is the vintage talking today.
The Bourgogne and the Fixin are the only wines in bottle – since September.
2018 Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits
From mother’s side, vines above Vosne. Was bottled in September.
Supple, layered, there’s ripeness and there’s a little lift of extra flavour in the finish – quite an alcoholic feeling.
2018 Fixin Les Crais
Deeper soil in the village with a lot of alluvial soil and small stones.
Lovely fruit here, freshness, and perfume. Still, a big ripe fruit but the energy/acidity is lovely.
2018 Fixin Combe du Roy
Full, round lots of attractive whole cluster on this nose. Full, very perfumed, a little saline. Long. Big but ‘giving’ wine. Excellent.
2018 Gevrey-Chambertin
Ooh, this has such an unctuous, cassis and perfumed nose. Lots of volume, energy, layers of freshness. Big but delicious despite the shape there’s freshness.
2018 Vosne-Romanée
2 parcels from Réas and Rivière which touches Réas, with separate vinification and ageing before blending.
Finer, faintly spiced freshness, super depth. Fresh, fine energy – the best – depth of flavour. Finely grained. This is super.
2018 Fixin 1er Les Arvelets
Beautiful wc perfume – not full power, a certain elegance. Here is a little depth of flavour, some oak tannin, but fine intensity and as elegant as dark fruit can be.
2018 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Plantes
More smoky, but becoming finer and finer – eventually beautiful aromatics. Wide, complex, a little salinity again. Wide and energetic in the finish too. This is excellent
5 different blocks – ‘most planted before my grandfather so we don’t know how old’ – just one small part is 10 yo. The vines were initially divided between the Gerbets and Sirugue-Gerbets, now divided in three with Amélie and two others, but Amélie is renting one of those portions back. ‘It’s very special for us, not just because it’s so well placed, but some of the parcels pre-date my grand-father – and of-course all is done by hand as we can’t get a tractor in there. For two years some work with a horse, have the ‘troye’ from Switzerland – and it’s a bit too physical for half a hectare. I still use it for ‘amusement’ but in a small parcel.
Such a beautiful aroma this year. Drive and freshness, width and complexity, some herb, some spice, this is simply great. Bravo – lot’s of structure in the finish!
2017 Clos de Vougeot
Have this cuvée since 2015 – same as the Suchots. From the bottom of the Clos, ‘I extract this much less than the others – I think the structure would be too much, otherwise. First try with stems for the freshness – I think it worked so we did the same in 2019 too.’
A fine, airy – ethereal nose. This has a lovely shape, not such a stark structure, rather open, more 1er cru density, but beautifully complex. Super wine…
2018 Fixin Blanc
Made since 2014, young vines, now 11 years-old.
Some sweetness but a little rigour to the nose. Open, airy, nice shape here, a little tannin. Long.