2019 Chambertin Grand Cru

Winemaker Carel Voorhuis, who took over the helm at Camille Giroud after the departure of David Croix in 2016, greeted me at the winery in Beaune. We commenced the tasting down in the barrel cellar, but it was so cold that I requested that we finish up in the warmer ground floor. Voorhuis is more quietly spoken than his predecessor, but certainly a talented winemaker. “It was warm and dry with low yields for the reds but normal for most of the whites except for Chassagne-Montrachet. You had to be careful with picking dates. The wines have good concentration. We picked from 12 to 26 September with good ripeness, 13.0°-13.5° for the reds with nothing over 14.0° and 12.5-13.0° for the whites. For the whites I’ve been pressing whole bunches to keep more freshness - the less skin contact the better, with little lees stirring. They were bottled around harvest time. For the reds, my approach was to keep the freshness and elegance and not have to extract too heavily. So, I fermented at slightly lower temperatures, 26°-28°C instead of 30°-32° and less pigeage than usual. I reduced the proportion of whole clusters in a few cuvées especially on the entry-level side in order to work on the balance between the skins and the must. We will start bottling in November until February or March next year. The 2019s have more depth than the 2018s. They are not that different in terms of balance but there is more concentration in 2019, and stylistically closer than many recent vintages.”

I felt at the time, and later perusing my notes, that there is some inconsistency across the 2019s, partly because some of the contracted fruit did not come up to scratch. Voorhuis admitted that this was the case with the Nuits- Saint-Georges Village, but he did not need to tell me – I could taste for myself. Predictably the Chambertin is top of the class, but there are very fine contributions from Chambolle-Musigny from lesser-known Premier Crus such as Les Borniques and Aux Echanges.