2015 Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru (Magnum)

“I’ll always remember the extreme 2016 growing season,” said Pierre-Yves Colin at the beginning of June. “It was amazing that we were able to make wine from every vineyard. We started from zero after the frost and we thought some vineyards would give nothing.” Colin began harvesting on September 22, with what he described as low potential alcohol between 11.5% and 12.5%. “The ripeness was difficult to get and it arrived at the end. The summer warmth ripened the second-generation fruit. This was unhoped-for but we took all of it. From the most affected vineyards, the wines are half first- and half second-generation fruit.”

“It’s not an unripe vintage, as in 2007 and 2004,” Colin emphasized. “The fruit character is more citrus than stone fruits. And the vintage is more mineral than 2015 in terms of its freshness at the beginning. Some of the best 2016s remind me of the 2010s. The bad thing for growers in 2016 is the low quantities, not the quality of the wines.” The alcoholic fermentations were slow, and the first malo didn’t finish until March; 95% of the Colin ‘16s were finished and sulfited by the time of my visit, although Colin has reduced his sulfur additions as his large new cellar is cooler than the one under his home in the center of the village. “We’re getting more texture, minerality and cleanness with élevage to this point," he pointed out.

Colin, who considered the 2015s to be outstanding from the beginning, nonetheless noted that the wines changed dramatically during their last months of élevage. He had originally planned to bottle them in February but delayed the bottling date twice for his crus not from Saint-Aubin, as the wines were gaining in energy. He considers 2015 to be a classic vintage and better then 2014 for the long haul. “The ‘15s totally resist oxidation after you uncork them,” he noted.

Pierre-Yves Colin told me he picked when he did “because the stems were already brown—in fact, I’ve never picked with my wood as brown as in 2015.” He went on: “At the end, the maturity came from loss of water, and the evaporation also preserved the acidity in the grapes.” Colin harvested Bourgogne on September 1, then went on to his top appellations the next day. Sugar levels ranged from 12.2% to 13.3% and he did not add sugar. “We were never worried about the balance of the wines because the fruit was perfectly clean,” he told me. Still, as he had new equipment and a new winemaking facility at the foot of the village of Chassagne-Montrachet, he carried out a triage to eliminate green grapes and any that had been affected by oidium.

His new cellar is naturally cold, and Colin is taking advantage of his new facility to slow down the development of his wines. His Chassagne-Montrachet cuvées mostly completed their malolactic transformations in April and May but some of the Meursaults were not yet finished. Colin told me that the 2015s remind him of the 2003s in the way they resist oxidation. “I suspect the acidity levels are quite low but they don’t affect the balance of the wines.”

Incidentally, Colin’s wines are now 80% from estate fruit. His recent purchases of vines have included some Puligny-Montrachet La Garenne in 2012, Chassagne-Montrachet Abbaye de Morgeot in 2014, and another piece of Saint-Aubin La Chatenière to enlarge this cuvée. He has also bought more Hautes-Côtes de Beaune, as well as some Saint-Aubin Les Perrières in 2013, mostly from his aunt.