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Domaine Simon Bize

It was a pleasure to see proprietor Chisa Bize in Savigny-lès-Beaune this year and a pleasure to see that after the travails of hail and frost-affected recent vintages, their vats are full. "There are some large cuvées. We usually use the maximum whole bunches but we had to de-stem between 20-25% because they were so full. We began the harvest on 29 August. The alcohol is between 13-14%, the highest in Bourgogne Rouge since the vines are high on the slope and is therefore the last picked. We only harvested in the morning to keep the freshness, but you could even see the difference [in fruit] between those picked at 7 o’clock and those in the early afternoon as it became too hot. So we picked the Premier Crus early in the morning and the Village Crus later." The extraction is a key issue in 2018 and Chisa explained: "We did pigeage twice a day from the third day of fermentation, in total around 15 times. Some appellations are good for pigeage even at high alcohol levels. Maybe the phenolic maturity is lower than the sugar level, so whether to pigeage or not is the question. When it came to 2019 I had a better idea." This last comment is important because Chisa explained how it was the first time that she had encountered such a growing season, how she was learning and being much more present in the winery instead of out in the vineyard. When I asked about the 2019 vintage, she told me that she knew what to do because of 2018 - a steep learning curve if ever there was one. And in a sense, tasting through the domaine’s 2018s, I feel that some of the cuvées, especially at the lower level of the hierarchy, underwent too much pigeage and exposed some bunches that may not have quite achieve total phenolic maturity, a nagging green note on finishes and some hardness of tannins that is uncharacteristic of the domaine. Once you approach more propitious terroirs, there is a little more consistency. To conclude: 2018 is a rather hit and miss year for Domaine Bize, but this experience should reveal much more assured and consistent 2019s that I look forward to tasting in a year’s time.

From 2018 Burgundy: Confounded Expectations (Jan 2020) by Neal Martin

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2018 Aloxe-Corton Le Suchot

Color: Red

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Domaine Simon Bize

2018 Aloxe-Corton Le Suchot

2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Fournaux 1er Cru

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2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Vergelesses 1er Cru Blanc

2018 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Marconnets 1er Cru

2018 Latricières-Chambertin Grand Cru

2018 Bourgogne Blanc Les Perrières

2018 Bourgogne Rouge Les Perrières

2018 Saivgny-lès-Beaune Village

2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Blanc

2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Aux Guettes 1er Cru

2018 Savigny-lès-Beaune Les Grands Liards

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