Tasted with Boris Champy in Nantoux, 17 October 2022.
Domaine Boris Champy
23 rue de la gare
21190 Nantoux
Tel: +33 3 80 26 03 13
www.domaineborischampy.com
More reports with Boris Champy
Boris on 2022:
“Yes it was a nice volume – it was like a Californian vintage – a summer of no rain yet still volume. Not too much sorting, about 90g for a cluster and no sunburn – lots of juice. Definitely not like 21 on the sorting table.”
Boris on 2021:
“Of course we had to sort harder than in 2022. God didn’t punish everyone at the same time – in the côtes the flowering weather was very good – but 10 days later in the hautes côtes the weather was not as good for the flowering – it took a few weeks – so we were not touched by the frost but had bad flowering so we ended up with 28 hl/Ha up here. In Beaune, we protected with candles and it made a big difference vs our neighbours – in the end giving us a similar volume to our hautes côtes. I saw very late malos here – finished nearly into July for some. More new oak was used due to the lower volume – but it was good for the structure of the 21s. Nothing is bottled yet, of course. In some places, I thought ripening might not have been too easy so I also made some crémant with that.”
The wines…
Boris has translated the vintage wonderfully well – great whites that you can blind-buy and a fair amount of great reds too – bravo!
All gamay from Nantoux – 3 small plots next to the domaine’s main plots. 50% whole bunches and 3-year-old barrels used here.
Round – airy – lots of aromatic volume here, there’s a nice cushioned aspect to this nose. A big punch of fresh energy, sweet, intense, very faintly grained. Beautifully fruity and delicious. Simply top gamay!
2021 Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune Altitude
More airy – still plenty of volume but more open in style – a different and very focused fruit style. Broader, layered – so juicy – red fruit. A wine where you rush to take another glass – so yum!
2021 Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune 421 En Bignon
A parcel with 421 metres of altitude between Nantoux and Bouze – ‘Very red soil with lots of clay – it doesn’t make a wine of lots of structure and the 500-litre barrels help to bring some generosity.’ A little less whole bunch than some years – 40-50% in this case – actually destemming and putting the stems in water and so2 before returning some stems to the fermentation – almost cleaning the stems first.
A much deeper nose – starting with a little reduction – so seems to be darker fruit. A big wave of vibrant, acid-led energy – like the nose darker fruited. Ooh – that’s also very, very moreish.
2021 Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune 377 Le Clou
4.5 ha of mid-slope vines, was once owned by the Château de Nantoux and was called the Clos des Château once – some of the old vines dating from 1900. Unlike the last, if you have rain, here you can still walk in the vines…
Airy, almost saline – lots of (back to) red fruit complexity. More generous but still so juicy – a little creamy in the finish from the barrels. Another beauty!
2021 Pommard En Boeuf
A cool place for Pommard. Bud-break here is after Nantoux but the flowering comes sooner, so no frost at all here. En Vigneaux the next vineyard lost about half to frost. This is a place that starts to warm up in May.
A fine nose of both depth and silky width – perfumed with acidulated red fruit, almost orange pulp. Super in the mouth, incisive, intense, framed with a modest tannin – but no dryness. I love this finishing intensity – a little generosity to this texture, faint herb too – in a very good way. I find this excellent!
‘Always windy here, so it’s a cooler area. Just up the route de Bouze – after the houses and Route des Vaches
A nose that cleans up beautifully with air – lovely purity. A few mm of cushioning here – purity, minerality and a fine cushion. So open, ethereal and delicious. That’s really special!
High, between the Clos of des Mouches and Ursules. ‘The candles saved some of the buds here in 2021 – the neighbours who didn’t use them were simply fried…’
Starting airy but again with impressive, almost granular, complexity – open and always something new to find. Cool, clean, direct – a very different shape – more fluid. Mouth-watering and moreish, more mineral in the finish, slightly chalky at the end. Bravo!
Les Whites:
The whites finished their malos last – almost in August:
2021 Bourgogne Aligoté Doré
This still without SO2
A roundness to this nose – sweetness too – cushioned. Broad, incisive and mineral, rippling with energetic citrus flavour. Gorgeous!
‘I can’t use the VP for the whole lot as the press lasts over 6 hours – but I love the straight quality of the wine that comes outs. So just 1k bottles of this.’
More direction, less cushion – super citrus style here. Clean, mobile, fluid – great wine – just unbelievably good – is the d’Auvenay better? Grand Vin.
A slightly low sulfur nose today – but still a vibrantly ripe, almost golden citrus too. Hmm, the fluidity of the last with more width. Still intense and juicy – another great thing. I think I have a tiny preference for the previous wine – but you can buy the whites here blind in 2021!