Tasted in Vosne-Romanée with María Ignacia Navarro González (Nacha) and shortly with Jean-Nicholas Méo, 12 December 2022.
Domaine Méo-Camuzet
11, rue des Grands Crus
21700 Vosne-Romanée
Tel: +33 3 80 61 55 55
www.meo-camuzet.com
More reports for Domaine Méo-Camuzet
Nacha and Jean-Nicolas on 2021:
“75% losses for the Clos St.Philibert, and for the domaine almost 40% down – but certain reds – like Murgers – had 70% losses. A couple of wines are in tank, and a couple are already bottled. Slowly we will work our way through the cuvées with the bottling from now. Almost all was harvested with 12.2-12.4° as the lowest of the sugars and a bit more for some others. We ‘lightly’ chaptalized up to 13° and I’m very happy with the wines as it was a year with a lot of complications. We had a lot of malic acid but some of the lower wines really didn’t want to start their malos. In the end, we have wines with precision and purity. I remember a stage that I did here in 1986 – it was awful – no triage and hardly 9.5° for some of the wines – people talk of 2021 as a very difficult vintage but today we live in very different times!”
The wines…
Another domaine where the first wines are excellent and those great wines that follow are properly great. Well done!
2021 Bourgogne Etienne Camuzet
Bright and open, fine red fruit of precision. Supple, and silky – here are melting flavours, with a modest fruit but a growing intensity and a little salinity too. Fine!
2021 Marsannay
Domaine since 2020.
Similar colour but there’s more depth to this aroma. Extra vibrant – the energy here brings some extra intensity too. Broad, saline and very attractive finishing – that’s really lovely.
2021 Chambolle-Musigny
Négoce.
Ooh – wow – perfect cliché Chambolle floral perfume – yes! Some extra width again, as the others, faintly saline but delicate and pure – this is simply a beautiful thing. Simply an excellent Chambolle.
2021 Vosne-Romanée
Slightly less open but with an extra richness and depth to this fruit. Here’s a certain extra something in the mouth too – wide, silky – and transparent. Beautiful wine.
2021 Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Chaumes
Practically the only parcel that brought a normal harvest volume.
Fine, beautiful purity here – I love the clarity of the fruit and faint violet flowers. More structure here but nothing to bring fear. Broad, subtly complex flavours, very faintly framed by a tiny – grainless – tannin. A beauty.
Normally 11-12 barrels – only 4 in this vintage. It was 99% the frost that was the cause of losses in Vosne – ‘we still did a strong trie’ but no botrytis made it into the cuvées – according to the analyses
Extra depth but again a beautiful perfume. Incisive, pure, modestly structured – gorgeous, energetic wine – super-silky and finishing with absolute finesse – yes!
2021 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Feuselottes
Négoce for nearly 20 years.
More airy style to this perfume – slowly growing in volume – lovely! Another incisive, direct, wine. Mineral in style – bubbling with subtle energy – and the finishing is mouth-wateringly fine and not a little mineral. Lovely wine – with a little extra kick in the finish too!
2021 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Les Charmes
A négoce cuvée here since 2020. The same supplier for all the Chambolles here.
Perfumed – broader at the base with a creamy edge to this gorgeous fruit. Nice structure but also a hint of extra generosity vs the Feuselottes. Extra delicious and sweeter finishing. Another deliciously attractive wine.
2021 Clos de Vougeot
In 2009 and 2017 there were two cuvées – Grand Maupertuis plus the vines in front of the château – all other vintages have been an assembly of all their vines.
Perfume at the centre of this nose – there’s red fruit too but more perfume. More scale in the mouth – beautiful waves of wide, fresh, mouth-watering flavour. Then expanding in the finish before slowly fading. In scale, you can easily see the move to grand cru here.
Old vines. Just about the only cuvée that sees a little whole cluster – done in layers – never more than 10% – in 2021 it was around 4%.
A more compact nose but still with some airy width. Extra incisive – but with just enough sucrosity for balance. Holding a fine core of flavour that slowly melts with much salinity over the palate. Great sustained finishing flavour here – super impressive – a great Corton!
A more textured and forward aromatic – vivid darker-red fruit. Incisive again, enough sucrosity again. Ooh – almost the best finish – vibrant. Mineral, long and pleading with you to take another sip! Bravo!
An airy width of aroma – where is the 100% new oak? I can’t find it! Wow – extra mineral – a finesse for a Richbourg that’s hard to triangulate – yet here we are. The finish is large-scale, hyper impressive. If you are looking for lots of volume it’s not here today – but maybe in 20-25 years – but it’s damn fabulous to drink already today! Still a great wine!
I asked about the oak use here: There’s a lot of new oak used this year but all matured 3 years before making the barrels – all with a light toast – it was once just about all ‘medium’ before. We use the highest level of fine grain even for our villages – still a blend of coopers. All are 228-litre except some larger barrels for the Clos St.Philibert white.