2014 Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Garenne 1er Cru

Like a number of his colleagues on the Côte de Beaune, winemaker/technical director Frédéric Barnier lamented what he described as “the bad ambiance” in Burgundy today, owing to so many recent short crops. “The growers are angry," he told me. "They don’t want to invest in the BIVB [Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne], which would like to do more to promote the region, because they have no wine to sell. But that’s very shortsighted. What will happen in the future when we have a lot of wine to sell?” Barnier is also concerned about current pressures in Burgundy to replace old vines. “Today there’s a shortage of material in French nurseries and some people may be tempted to bring in illegal plants from Spain or elsewhere,” he said.

Jadot made between 80% and 85% of a normal crop of white wines in ’14, said Barnier, as the summer and harvest were trickier for the Pinot Noir. “In late August, after a very humid and not particularly sunny summer we thought we’d pick the Pinots first because they were farther ahead in their ripening, and the Chardonnay was still hard and green. But the change in the weather to cooler and drier helped the whites to restart and to be ready before the Pinots, which were at the end of their growing cycle. The Chardonnay was more able to benefit from the perfect weather we had during the last week of August and first half of September. So we picked Chardonnay with very good balance. The wines have great clarity and no botrytis and it should be a long-lived vintage for these wines.”

As has long been standard practice at Jadot, Barnier blocked a portion of the malolactic fermentations in 2014—in this case 50% to 55%. Interestingly, in 2015, a year in which the fruit began with less acidity, Barnier blocked 90% or more of the secondary fermentation to preserve freshness, and the post-malo ’15s will actually be bottled with higher malic acidity than the ‘14s. “But the 2014s communicate a feeling of freshness combined with very good ripeness and a certain richness,” said Barnier, who did no lees stirring and aged his wines in 25% to 35% new barrels across the board, always using the same mix of Allier, Tronçais and Nevers oak for Chardonnay. “The only variable in the wines is terroir,” he said.