2022 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

Head winemaker Brian Sieve was on duty to guide me through their range of 2022s. Discussing the minutiae of Burgundy with Sieve is always enjoyable; his knowledge of the region’s vineyards is matched by few I know. He began by describing the season’s dry beginnings and recalled how, in April, he looked at one of their tractors working its way through Volnay Taillepieds with plumes of dust trailing behind it - the soil was that dry. “We had an uneventful 2022,” he explains in their barrel cellar in Meursault. “We didn’t have any employee or tractor problems. The “noise” you have during a vintage didn’t happen. The biggest problem was early in the season, trying to find good wood to prune after the frosts in 2021. We had quite a bit of rain in June to sustain us through the dry periods, especially on the limestone soils. The Côte de Nuits and, in particular, Clos de Vougeot seem to get more rain than the Côte de Beaune, 40mm there compared to 10mm down here. I have this theory that the anti-hail canons we have in the Côte de Beaune ‘push’ the storms northwards. Marsannay and Gevrey get heaps of rain. You get more stress on more calcareous soils that are porous but free-draining. We didn’t have a heatwave or ‘canicule’ when the vines shut down. It was a warm season for sure, but the stats are skewed because of hot temperatures in February and March. It wasn’t like 2018 when maturity was advanced and progressing very fast. In 2022, the maturity came slower. We started with the kosher wines on August 26 and finished around September 8. We cropped at around 45hL/ha for the reds. The percentages of whole clusters were based upon whether it fitted into the vats. The wines underwent one extraction per day, pigeage rather than pumping over, which is just done at the beginning, whereas in his day, Hubert de Montille was doing three or four. Extraction happens by itself more than it used to. We found that we have very high quality lees in 2022.”

As readers might expect, the 2022s are a clear step up from the 2021s. The Chevalier-Montrachet ranks amongst the best tasted, likewise their Corton-Charlemagne. Puligny Les Caillerets is complex and intellectual, the Folatières sapid and more-ish. The Les Perrières battles it out with their Les Porusots…I might plump for the latter, though don’t overlook their Meursault “St. Christophe” for value-for-money. Amongst the reds, I never saw the brilliance of the Pommard Les Cras coming, not just matching but potentially surpassing their Les Rugiens-Bas and Les Pezerolles. Wines don’t have to kowtow to their Burgundy hierarchy. I found a large differential between the Vosne Malconsorts and the Cuvée Christiane this year, the latter with ethereal delineation and sensual towards the finish. Finally, the Corton Clos-du-Roi exudes classicism and outshines the slightly conservative Clos de Vougeot.