Tasted in Fixin with Amélie Berthaut, 17 November 2021.
Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
9 Rue Noisot
21220 Fixin
Tel: +33 3 80 52 45 48
www.domaine-berthaut.com
More reports with Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet
Amélie on 2020:
“Some wines are bottled, some are in tank, some are still in their barrels. It’s a vintage of great quality but not great yields – 2017 was the last good volume and it’s been downhill since then – I hope it doesn’t go down from what we did in 2021 – 18 hl/ha! There was more rain in Vosne so the yields are good there but in Fixin much less so so the yields were lower – and we have a lot more vines in Fixin!”
The wines…
Simply a great range of 2020s – excellent wines – as a minimum – but there are many great wines to search out.
From Amélie’s mother’s side, planted by her grandfather. Vines above Vosne on the plateau – there’s 10 ha in this plot and currently, 4 ha are here in this domaine. 60-year-old vines, bottled in Sept just before the harvest.
A compact nose but with a fine purity of dark fruit. Lovely in the mouth – so classy and silky, mouth-watering with pure dark fruit. That’s a beauty – Bravo Bourgogne.
2020 Fixin
From 4 parcels, all destemmed. Blended into tank 3 weeks ago – bottling in December
A nose that just gets better and better – wider, and vibrantly dark fruited, almost a little coffee-inflected – that’s really super.
2020 Fixin Les Crais
Deeper soil in the village with a lot of alluvial soil and small stones.
Starting with a faint reduction. There are stems in this one but you may easily miss them. More structure but also a more open and juicy style. This has a fine depth and layering of finishing flavour. Graphite minerals in the finish. That’s also super…
Old vines planted before Amélie’s grandfather
A bit of reduction but it blows away quite easily. The nose becomes silky and rather elegant. Hmm, that has a fine elegance in the flavour too – melting beautiful fruit over the palate. That’s great villages.
From 3 different vines, two in Reas and one Rivière. Always blended but with separate elevage.
Fine red-fruited – that’s a beauty again. Vibrant beautifully cliché Vosne with a finely spiced fruit. Layered in the finish. Such a fine finish! Another bravo villages…
Starting a little reductive but cleaning up and growing with lovely floral components. Super silky, aplenty of concentration. A mineral aspect in the finish. Simply excellent, indeed great Fixin
2020 Fixin 1er Les Hervelets
A small parcel high in the vineyard near the wood, it’s a sandier soil up here. All whole cluster but a tiny production.
So perfumed – the same amount of stems in this as the last but here more visible but beautifully so. Even silkier. Showing a hint of oak. Tannin but grainless. Simply excellent wine – rather wc-forward which I love but some others may not.
There may be 100% stems here but this is so elegant – a beautifully perfumed nose. So sophisticated is this texture and so sinuous the delivery of flavour, of faintly peppered complexity. Then finely saline. A really top Lavaux…
2020 Vosne-Romanée Les Petits Monts
5 different blocks – ‘most planted before my grandfather so we don’t know how old’ – just one small part is aged 10. 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 grandfather – 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.’ Amélie likes the wine but given the position and age of the vines can’t bring herself to say that she makes a great wine here – ‘you know it’s next to Richebourg, so…’ 8 barrels but 4 go back to the family.
A more compact nose – but oh-so fine. Direct, slightly structural, lovely depth to the and width to the flavour, faintly saline, gorgeously finishing. Overall a compact but beautifully detailed thing. Excellent…
2020 Clos de Vougeot
The bottom part between Grivot and Leroy
This also has a smaller nose but such a beautiful nose – gorgeous. Fuller but round, finely-divided tannin of micro-grains. Amazingly approachable. I love CV and I love this.
2020 Echézeaux
3 parcels; Treux and Quartiers de Nuits, plus some Champs Traversins higher near the wood. It may be 3 parcels but of old vines, so only 2.5 barrels.
Really aromatic, lots of wc perfume and even an impression of barrels – but this tasted from a 2016 barrel… Really a mouth-filling wine here – quite large-scaled for many I’ve tasted from this vintage. That’s a lovely thing!
And to finish:
2020 Fixin Blanc
Sampled from tank. The first vintage was 2014 ‘so the vines still need more age…’
A deep and quite concentrated nose. That’s a lovely shape and quite direct. Some modest padding. Almost a tannin. That’s as good a FB as I ever tasted. Very good