2013 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes

Denis Bachelet describes 2013 as a vintage fraught with challenges, starting with a cool, rainy spring that adversely affected flowering and lowered yields. The fruit ripened during the last few weeks of September, when the sun is weaker than it is earlier in the summer. Harvest started on October 5, something that had not been seen at the domaine since the 1980s. Bachelet's 2013s capture the style of the year in their vibrant, chiseled personalities yet have plenty of the textural depth that is such a Bachelet signature. Across the board, these are very fine Burgundies.

Denis Bachelet asked rhetorically: "With so many restaurants in France and elsewhere putting young Burgundies on their lists immediately, should I make wines that will give pleasure early or should I continue to make wines that need extended aging?" Bachelet, who has always maintained that his wines need at least six or seven years of bottle aging, seemed genuinely conflicted. Bachelet has always sought to retain sound natural acidity in his grapes, but he was not a particularly early harvester in 2013, beginning on October 5 and eliminating both rotten and green grapes. He had healthy crop levels in the range of 40 to 42 hectoliters per hectare in 2013 and potential alcohol levels were in the 11.8% range; he chaptalized his various cuvées to 12.5% to 12.8%. With healthy low pHs, the 2013s are in the same style as the 2010s and 2006s here, Bachelet told me. "They're probably for drinking after the 2012s."