2015 Chassagne-Montrachet Clos du Château de la Maltroye 1er Cru

According to Jean-Pierre Cournut, the 2015 white wines were fresher and brighter last spring than the '16s were at the time of my May 31 visit this year, but he added that all of the '15s were acidified and that the grapes in 2016 actually had better acidity at the time of the harvest (he acidified his 2016 La Romanée and Grandes Ruchottes lightly). He also finds the '16s to be less minerally than the '15s. Cournut began harvesting in 2016 on September 23, with yields in some vineyards down sharply due to frost. The malos were finished and the wines had been sulfited about three weeks before I stopped by to taste. I did not find these wines to be lacking in energy.

Cournut describes his 2015s as “pungent, precise, minerally wines with long aging potential” but also noted that it was a “very particular” vintage for him, as he made just half a crop overall—“even less than in 2012”—but experienced sharp differences in yields among his holdings. He started harvesting on August 27 with good acidity, but noted that some of his neighbors did not begin until eight days later, by which time acid levels in the grapes had plunged. He summed up by asserting that 2015 is “the best white vintage I've ever made.”

For the past several years Jean-Pierre Cournut has invited me to taste his red wines and on a frigid, foggy day in December I finally had the chance to do so. Red wine is a passion for Cournut (his six reds represent 40% of his production), and he told me he crops his Pinot Noir vines 40% lower than most of his neighbors in the village do. And 2015 was his tiniest crop ever, with his vines in Clos Saint-Jean yielding just 20 hectoliters per hectare. He started harvesting Pinot on August 28 and finished in three hot days, with potential alcohol levels ranging between 12.3% and 12.8%. Cournut noted that growers with the typically larger yields harvested in this appellation had barely 11% potential alcohol at the time he picked.

I rarely devote much space to the red wines of Chassagne-Montrachet because I too often find them tart, dilute or simply less interesting than Pinot Noirs from the classic red wine villages of the Côte de Beaune--and with their fleshiness frequently out of whack with their acidity. But these wines are important to the growers from a commercial standpoint: Although red wine accounts for about one-third of total production of Chassagne-Montrachet, the appellation’s roughly 50 premier crus are planted to more like 45% Pinot Noir. Cournut’s examples are better than the overwhelming majority of the category, thanks in large part to their inherent concentration and his gentle handling. Two thousand fifteen is a great success for these wines, but then Cournut's 2014s were also outperformers.

Cournut lightly acidified virtually all of his 2015 cuvées. He told me that his new equipment allows him to work mostly by gravity and that he is able to retain mostly uncrushed berries for his extended pre-fermentation cold soak, which lasts 10 to 12 days at temperatures as low as 4 degrees C.