2017 Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

I tasted this year with Eric Germain’s assistant Christophe Morin, who joined the Girardin operation in 2012 after finishing enology school in Dijon. The 2017 harvest here began on August 28, and Morin told me that there wasn’t much hydric stress due to well-timed rains. The precipitation in early September “swelled the grapes a bit, bringing a bit more quantity but not a big change in balance,” he said. Grape sugars were mostly between 12.5% and 13.5%, but some cuvées were lower and needed light chaptalization. “The wines are nicely balanced and still have an element of concentration, but not like in 2015 or 2003,” said Morin. Girardin made about 90% of the permitted quantities in ’17 on average, according to Morin.

As the Chardonnay grapes were generally rich in dry extract and salinity, not to mention fully ripe and possessing healthy skins, Germain and Morin did a bit more foulage than usual (the crushing of the grapes prior to the start of the fermentation). Thanks to the year’s “very strong material,” the team started off with a relatively high six or seven liters of lees per barrel following a débourbage lasting less than 24 hours. The wild-yeast fermentations went very well (the wines finished bone-dry in November or December, with under one gram per liter of residual sugar, according to Morin) and the wines were still on their lees when I stopped by to taste in early June (most of the malos finished in March and the wines were sulfited in early April). In fact, the ‘17s won’t be racked until January or February, in preparation for bottling in March and April. Morin believes that the ‘17s whites “will need some aging to achieve plentitude and will last a long time.” By the way, Morin is not convinced that the Girardin red wines have as much density as the whites or will need as much aging.