2008 Chassagne-Montrachet

"Both 2008 and 2007 were saved by ten days of good weather before the harvest," noted Gerard Boudot. He began harvesting in 2008 on September 23, bringing in fruit with 13% to 13.5% potential alcohol (higher than in 2007) and with "a bit of surmaturite." The harvest required a lot of work, he told me. "We needed to pick out the grey rot and keep the pinker grapes. It was a small crop, especially after the selection, but the crop level had actually been smaller than 2007 since the flowering." He did a stricter settling of the must in 2008-in contrast to 2007 and 2005, two very clean vintages that required almost no debourbage. Ultimately, Boudot describes the 2008s as "between 2007 and 2006 in style, with higher acidity than 2006 but less of an exotic character." And he noted that "there's no reason why the 2007s won't last a long time," telling me that he now uses 40 ppm SO2 for the bottling, as well as thicker corks and silicone rather than paraffin to facilitate cork extractability. As to earlier vintages, Boudot admitted that "there's a lot of premature oxidation in my 1999s, the 2000s are in good shape, and the 2001s won't last a long time." (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL)