
Monday: Never judge a book by its cover!
It’s a few degrees cooler this morning – but dry – just arrived we have grapes from Corton Chaumes, 90 year old vines that have given a low (significantly sub 30hl/ha) yield – the grapes are perfect, as good as anything seen in 2005. In the picture you can see the ‘field-blend’ of chardonnay, pinot noir and at the bottom the lighter pinot beurot (pinot gris). The stems are part lignified, dry and if you chew them there is no astringency. The winemaker gets a flash-back of Saturday’s DRC and decides to go for it – we will include 50% whole clusters. The destemmed grapes are added over the whole clusters and we expect some carbonic maceration to start at the base of the stainless-steel tank and the wine will go from there.
Anyway, if it goes wrong, Nanson will be blamed and will have to buy the barrel 😉
After this perfect material, we wait for grapes from Aloxe. What arrives is from the Aloxe 1er Cru Guérets and from the same owner as for the Corton Chaumes – and it shows! The vines are a little younger – but only a little – around 70 years, and the quality is very close to the Corton; very little rot with well-formed bunches. As can be seen by the speed of the triage table, these gapes are easily the equal of 2005.
Next up (following choucroute and cake…) we have over 100 cases of pinot from Maranges. The grapes look almost good – we slow the triage table a little vs what we had in the morning – some of our cases have more rot than others but overall everything looks fine and still way, way better than the bourgogne grapes of Sunday. Apparently the winemaker buys all of the production from this plot in Maranges – as he personally feels it is about the best terroir – and despite the lowly appellation, he requests only 5-7 bunches per vine. I think herein we see the result of that decision.
Looking at the Chassagne 1er Vergers that we triaged yesterday; already it is 90% clear, which is hard to believe when you see the yellow/grey opaque material that comes from the press – sulfur dioxide is a wonderful thing! It will now be moved from it’s gross lees into another tank and from there, with its fine lees, direct into the barrels. The taste is already rather good, viscous and with a nice balance – still, this would be rather expensive if drunk as grape juice!
The rain has pretty much stayed away the whole day. We have a few degrees lower – though still T-shirts and shorts for the ‘workers’ – and the humidity is a little lower. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.