2016 Chablis Vieille Voye

My first appointment in Chablis was with winemaker Gregory Viennois in the medieval surroundings of Domaine Laroche in the heart of the village. “We had frost and hailstorms in 2016. We lost around 40% in Chablis Village, 50% for the Premier Cru and 60% for the Grand Cru, though that is less than 2017 when we lost 55%, 60-65% and more than 70% in the Grand Cru. That year we cropped at just 15hl/ha. In 2016, we also lost some volume from green harvesting to manage the canopy. Winter was not very cold and the beginning of the season was rainy. September made the vintage. What we did in the vineyard in the previous months, de-leafing and so forth, was important. There were classic conditions for the ripeness of the grapes in September. The 2016 has been a discrete vintage and after the alcoholic fermentation when we tasted the wine, it was a revelation. The wines had fine new mineralité and purity, much more classic in style than we had thought. We started harvest on 26 September as the fruit was slow in ripening but it was very important to pick on exactly the right day, something we learned in 2013. We now have six presses so we can separate all the cuvées coming in at reception, which means you don’t have to wait. I think some people waited too long and lost freshness and purity of the fruit. We no longer use enzymes and conduct a very light filtration. I think 2016 is more delicate than 2014, but we are happy.” The 2016s from Laroche are reassuringly consistent from one cru to another, especially with respect to their Montmains and Vaillons Vieilles Vignes, with just the Vaucoupins raising some doubts in my mind. There is not a particular wine that leaps out and demands a place within the top tier of 2016s, but Laroche continues to be a domaine in safe hands under Gregory Viennois.

Technical Director Grégory Viennois is high on the 2016 vintage, describing it as a “classic, pure, well-balanced vintage with pure fruit—not at all like 2013. It’s in the line of 2014 and 2012 and even 1996: dry, strict and vertical.” He was initially worried about the health of the lees but finds the wines a pleasant surprise today. In terms of harvest dates, 2016 can be compared to 2014, he told me. The estate began picking on September 26 and finished on October 4, speeding up the harvest due to botrytis, the seeds of which had been planted, he noted, during the very humid spring. (He removed the lees on the north side of the vines in early July to get better aeration.) “The late season made the vintage, as in 2014,” he summarized, adding that the hot, dry August led to very dry soils in September.

Potential alcohol levels in the village holdings were 11.5% to 12% in ‘16, but more like 12% to 12.2% for the premier and grand crus. Not everything was chaptalized, “and then only lightly,” he noted, adding that the vintage has a good natural balance. Acidity levels are now in the range of 4 to 4.2 grams per liter, a touch higher than in 2015.

Incidentally, this estate is using the “white lees” as a natural fining agent, “like the oldtimers did,” noted Viennois, and will be moving in the direction of lighter filtration when it comes time to bottle the ‘16s.

Viennois noted that the 2015s are “more strict and closed than we expected—it's not an overripe vintage.” The wines gained in precision toward the end of their élevage but Viennois considers them to be closed today—“and not currently joyful”—owing to the effect of nitrogen during the bottling. He compared the young 2015s to the 2005s in their skin influence and believes that the wines will need at least three years of cellaring. “If they age, it will be more on dry extract than on acidity,” he asserted. “The 2005s are beautiful today but it’s more a vintage of concentration than minerality.”