Tasted in Beaune with Gilles de Courcel and Jean-Pierre Confuron, 04 December, 2015.
Chanson Père et Fils
10 Rue du Collège/r Paul Chanson
21200 Beaune
Tel: +33 3 80 25 97 97
www.vins-chanson.com
Maybe I should move this producer to my ‘domaine’ selection next time – here I taste (virtually) only their domaine wines, though it is a truncated range in 2014…
Jean-Pierre on 2014:
“The weather was poor, and there’s not much wine – on average we were hailed 70% for the domaine. Still had to do a hard triage too but the wines have a good frame. Pernand was less hailed, but lower-down and the Beaune side of Savigny was still hit quite badly. We have no Blagny rouge, no Clos des Mouches. The wines are full and concentrated, the grapes that remained were ripe – we had 35 people just doing triage on 3 large triage tables – that’s a normal team for harvesting in the vines! Certain wines are better in the Côte de Beaune than the Côte de Nuits. This year we were more like a domain of 12 hectares…”
Jean-Pierre on 2015:
“For once, an easy vintage. No maladies – all is in bio and we had perfect grapes with a little maturity blockage towards the end, so we worked the harvest from the 6-16 September. Still, low yields as not a lot of wood from the previous years of hail. This could easily be the vintage of the century for Beaune 1ers – I’ve done 25 vintages and never seen such grapes – strength 10, they were monstrous. 1929 had similar concentration. I think the whites may be as good and that would be even rarer.”
The wines…
Wines to wait for but really special wines. Serious, and not for early drinking…
2014 Domaine Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Les Vergelesses
Deep colour, equally deep, a gorgeous deep nose. Supple, plenty of fine, if drying, tannin. Very concentrated… really long, but the texture is far from frightening. Excellent.
2014 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Dominode
A deep nose with bright, dark-red silky fruit top notes. Big in the mouth, lots of tannic texture, drying but again with no grain.
2014 Domaine Beaune 1er Bastion
Here reside of all of the Beaune 1er grapes where there wasn’t enough to label a separate cuvée – plus the usual constituents of this cuvée – so actually there’s more of this year.
Wide, a little floral, with violets. Lithe, less structure, but still structured. Really lovely and wide mid-palate flavour. A richness of fruit but this remains juicy and drinkable.
From three parcels; Faivriottes planted in 1961, near the stade rugby. A section of mid-slope vines from 1954, and the 1990 planted last parcel.
Very pretty if discreet. Concentrated, dark oak texture without grain a bright floral mid-palate flavour. Simply a monument. Excellent.
2014 Domaine Beaune 1er Clos des Marconnets
Only 50% hailed here in north Beaune.
Big open and inviting with a faint oak. A brighter, slightly oaked flavour. The mid-palate is wide and complex. Like all these there’s a glove of tannin that today is dry but not grainily textured – or hardly. Serious wine…
2014 Domaine Beaune 1er Clos des Fèves
Perfumed, effusive, a hint of oak spice but with flowers and a deep, tight, fruit. In the mouth this is more direct with a growing intensity. More airy, less overtly tannic, but a beautiful complexity… A reprise in the finish too. Less overtly concentrated but a beauty.
Les blancs…
All the whites are now in bottle – brilliant whites here, wines for food not aperitifs…
2014 Meursault
Assembly of parcels – Vireuls, Clous, Murgers and En la Barre – purchased fruit but 60% picked by the team here.
A real Meursault nose with spicy bread, freshness. Round in the mouth, supple faint tannin, a little mineral. A hint of spicy flavour. Direct and slowly mouth-watering without being effusive. A discreet but proper Meursault… Tasty in the finish too…
2014 Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Hautes Marconnets
Less open and overt but still a fine and high-toned nose. Supple, moving nicely over the tongue, an impression of phenolics, tasty with fresh notes. This is nicely complex and becomes ever-more intense. Very nice indeed… bright and tasty in the finish too – again faintly tannic…
2 hectares of vines on the opposite side of the road to Bonneau du Martray’s Charlemagne. Also hailed.
Tight but fresh but with concentrated citrus below. A little mineral, beautiful bright and focused notes, wide, tannic, a bright finishing growth of flavour and it holds strongly. This is a beauty!
Almost 2 hectares of vines.
This has a more reticent aromatic, but there is a textured complexity that is very inviting, almost faintly spicy. Lithe, concentrated, mouth-wateringly intense, gorgeous flavour. Really quite some power yet with silken delivery. Bravo! Super-long on a pretty note too.
Deeper, more considered but silken nose, which eventually allows some perfectly focused citrus notes to escape. Wide and silky, initially mineral but then slowly grows with fresh flavour – not overt puppy energy, but serious and almost intellectually challenging. Really fine clarity in the mid-palate flavours. Fabulously complex citrus notes in the finish. Brilliant!