2015 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru

The secondary buds carried very little fruit in 2016, and the new shoots took another three to four weeks to grow, said Christophe Roumier. “But the good, hot summer compressed the differences in ripeness.” Yields varied dramatically, as Roumier’s home village of Chambolle-Musigny was hit hard by the frost. He lost about 50% of his fruit in Musigny and Les Amoureuses, two-thirds in Les Cras, and all of his Bourgogne Rouge and Corton-Charlemagne. His tiny quantity of Chambolle-Musigny Les Combottes went into his Chambolle villages.

Roumier started harvesting on September 24, bringing in what he described as “ripe, clean fruit—normal-sized grapes with thick skins”; some parcels were as high as 13% potential alcohol and did not require chaptalization. Roumier told me that he did not change his normal vinification in 2016, except for doing fewer punchdowns than usual. The wines have lowish total acidity but average pHs, Roumier told me, and he believes that, with their generosity and ripe, broad tannins, the ‘16s are built to age.

Roumier described 2015 as “a great vintage with a very good balance between strength and elegance, and the acidity and tannins for good aging capacity.” His only quibble was that some wines are a bit too high in alcohol for his taste. And he also believes that 2015 generally shows a tendency toward reduction, and that the wines are already shutting down in bottle. Like a number of producers I visited this fall and winter, Roumier is now using new corks from Bouchons Trescases (labeled “ND”) that are individually tested for TCA using gas chromatography.

Christophe Roumier was a late harvester in 2015, picking between September 10 and 15. He had originally planned for a September 3 start but moved that date back a week because the tannins were not yet ripe; he also wanted to avoid the “hardness of structure” of the 2005s. “The rain that started on the 12th de-stressed the skins without rotting them and was positive for the quality of the wines,” he asserted. The crop was modest in size, with the average yield of just 31 hectoliters per hectare. Incidentally, Roumier noted that vintage 2016 brought his smallest harvest since 1971, as the late April frost hit Chambolle-Musigny hard.

Roumier increased his use of whole-cluster fermentation in 2015. He reduced his number of punchdowns, doing more pumpovers instead, but he maintained the normal length of his cuvaisons. “We had thick skins and big pips in 2015,” said Roumier. “The wines are more about fruit and flesh than minerality. They’re classy wines with an element of power. They’re already complex but I’m sure they will age well and bring more in time. And the dense, velvety tannins make a real difference in 2015.”