Tasted in Gilly les Citeaux with everyone’s favourite Bond villain, Laurent Ponsot, 17 November 2023.
Laurent Ponsot SAS
10 Rue Des Cerisiers
ZA Petite Champagne
21640 Gilly Les Citeaux
Tel: +33 3 80 41 03 27
www.laurentponsot.wine
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More reports for Laurent Ponsot.
Laurent on 2021:
“I’ve done 43 vintages now, yet 2021 was such a strange vintage with this late frost – particularly the whites. We do typically 150 barrels of whites, we did 35! Some appellations – like Blagny – were completely lost. Chambolle was the worst affected for the red areas – the rest were ‘down’ but less so. We are certainly in a ‘heatwave’ in terms of our vintages – 21 is a great vintage because we have gained temperatures – always helpful for reds! – The last bad vintage, for me, was 84 – the date of grape picking is essential. 21 is pure terroir – the wine’s character hasn’t been smothered by the vintage characteristics.”
The wines…
A shorter tasting here due to fewer bottles in 2021 – but what a tasting – possibly one of the very best cellars for 2021 reds!
As each year now, tasting only after bottling:
Vibrant, zesty, fresh – what a focus and invitation. Good, volume, very silky but there’s energy here too. Wide with finishing citrus-skin flavours and even a little texture… Bravo Bourgogne!
2021 Meursault Cuvée du Pandoréa
In this vintage from 15 locations
Hmm – that’s a vibration of spice – so faint but so Meursault. Hmm, creamy depth – properly concentrated, detailed flavour. Gorgeous wine.
2021 Corton-Charlemagne Cuvée du Kalimeris
8 providers from 12 different locations on the hill.
Extra zesty width – fresh and so great. Again there’s a faintly creamy depth to this flavour but there is scale here – there is a depth to this flavour. Simply excellent wine.
Les Reds:
From 12 different areas.
Hmm – that’s another large nose of energy and pure red fruit complexity. Perfume runs through the flavour of this wine only faintly structured right in the last flavour notes. Not a wine of impact but one that’s engrossingly delicious – bravo!
Another 12 plots from different suppliers.
Limpid, fine clarity. So much more depth and additional complexity of aroma – wow! More structural wine but sweetly melting over the palate with intensity. The finish is small but so, so, long, haunting length… Bravo!
Wonderful aromatics – a glacé clarity of shimmering red fruit that really reminds me of previous vintages of this wine. Hmm – width and energy framed with a tiny grain of tannin. Really, really long, subtly long and superb…
10 of the 15 climats of Clos de Vougeot in this bottle.
Hmm – now that’s a full nose – so much weight and energy – maraschino cherry here. Perfect texture and clarity – direct only slowly adding a faint halo of structural tannin. Some depth and impressive length. Super, super wine – bravo.
I farmed one plot since 1967 but now there’s another plot – ‘and it’s 10x better!’
Not as large a nose as the CV but seamless and deep – what clarity we have here. With larger scale, and clarity again, the structure is felt in shape but not in texture – great wine…
A width of aroma – quite ripe fruit here. More core concentration, less elegant tannin framing the flavour – but no dryness and it will fade to zero over the coming years. More savoury and broad finishing than the Chambertin – almost a cocoa powder note. Top Griotte but I’d take the Chambertin in preference – if I had the choice!