2021 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru

“The 2021 vintage started with a mild winter, so vines started to move in March, which is now normal. So, bud burst was early in March when it was warm. What we feared happened. We had four nights of frost in a row with snow on the second night, which is impossible to fight against. We didn’t have enough candles for that length of time, so we used them to protect the Premier and Grand Cru. The snow did the real damage. Maybe in the future we will have to raise the level of the buds from the ground. We knew it would be a small crop in the beginning. It was a tough season. Those parcels that didn’t suffer frost grew normally, so there were kind of two vintages in one. When you have frost, you have to think about the next pruning in the following year. It was heaps of work. In June, it was a bit wet though the vines affected by frost were sensitive to oïdium that translated into more sprays, all organic here. We did three additional sprays and still managed to keep it to a low level.”

“The key was to not give up – it was as much about protecting 2022, to get the buds in the best condition to avoid the stress of the frost and keep the embryo inside the bud for the next year. It was constant work, seven days a week, spraying on shorter cycles, plus there was COVID in the background, so recruiting a bigger team was slower than normal. We started picking on 18 September in Bâtard-Montrachet and finished on 1 October with the Aligoté. Most of the whites were picked 23-27 September. There was just a bit of botrytis, but it was not dramatic. You cannot pick everything going down the row of vines, you have to laboriously look for the bunch, which takes time. We sorted the whites. When you have a small crop, you tend to save every grape, but in 2021, you had to sort the fruit, and we discarded around 10% of the white and red, including the lees.”

“It was difficult to ferment with such small volumes. We had more aging in regular pièce and 600-liters this year with no new oak. It’s a big surprise, the 2021. The lees were not looking great, so we used a minimum. That has paid off in the end. The reds were late down into barrel, and the barrel maturation is on just three to four liters of lees. The malolactic fermentations were late, and some cuvées did not finish until summer 2022. But as soon as they started becoming wines, I found that they had life and vibrancy. That was something I was not expecting from Bourgogne to Grand Cru. The reds are super stable, and I’m sure they’ll have a good life in bottle.”