2018 Gevrey-Chambertin Village

Cyprien Arlaud welcomed me at his estate. As usual, I always have trouble with the electronic gate that does not want me to enter. Eventually, I broke through and could admire his new tasting room with its splendid arched window and chapel-like wooden beams on the ceiling. Arlaud is fastidious at every stage of the winemaking process. He is arching the canes (tressage) in the Bonnes-Mares and expanded that across all his Grand and Premier Crus in 2024. He told me that the higher trellising provides more shade.

“I consider it to be a regular vintage if you made good choices, if you are ‘awake’ in the vineyard,” Arlaud tells me. “You had to manage the yield. Every step from flowering made the vine ‘generous.’ The last green harvest that we conducted was in 2014 because biodynamic farming regulates the yield. However, one of the consequences of global warming is that it pushes yields higher, so we did one green harvest in July and the other after véraison in August, from Grand Cru to Village Cru. We did not drop bunches onto the floor but removed them in buckets.”

He continued, “There was no surprise [in terms of volume] at harvest, which started on September 7 in the Côte de Beaune and the following day in the Côte de Nuits. We only picked in the mornings and used equipment to cool the bunches. For some wines, like the Bonnes-Mares and Clos de la Roche, we did two different pickings and vinifications according to the size of the crop and the speed of ripeness, then blended them together. We sorted both in the vineyard and at reception this year, so we had to train the pickers to do that. This meant I did not have to reduce the percentage of stems, a minimum of 30% whole bunch up to 100%. There is no chaptalization, around 13.2% for the Grand Cru and 13.8% for the Premier Crus. In 2023, you get the ripeness of the tannins with the delicacy of a cool vintage. It is difficult to compare with other vintages.”

Readers will be aware of that in my 2020 Burgfest report. Arlaud’s 2020s did not show well. This prompted him to analyze all the wines. He also told me how all cuvées are checked for volatility, active Brettanomyces levels and so forth. Kudos to him for being so rigorous and not simply ignoring the comments from that blind tasting. He informed me that there is below 30mg total of SO2 at bottling and around 15-17 mg of free SO2.

Cyprien Arlaud is too often overlooked among the coterie of Burgundy's biodynamic winemakers. That might be because his style of wines does not fit the tropes of “transparency” or “red fruit,” but rather these are more structured wines that err toward black fruit and that demand bottle age. Pulling up outside the winery, the rather undeveloped exterior is tarmacked over with brand-new electronic gates. It takes five or ten unfortunate minutes to work out how to enter. There are a few teething issues. Once inside, much of the extension and construction work appears completed, with a new ground-floor tasting room awaiting the painter and decorator. Arlaud escorted me down to the barrel cellar and commenced with a summary of the 2022 growing season.

“It was a dry growing season, warmer than usual. For the Village, we now use cover crops as they are on more clayey soils that can become compacted. This means we are getting less stress in the vines. One of the main challenges was the heavy rain in June that brought some flooding, and this accelerated the vines’ vigor. The rain was less here in Morey-Saint-Denis than in Gevrey, but we still received 100mm of rain in one hour. Fortunately, I don’t have vines where the heaviest rain fell, so I didn’t suffer any erosion, perhaps because of the way we have plowed the soils by horse for over 19 years. Now, we plow early in the morning to avoid the heat and also according to the moon. Also, we did more tressage in Clos de la Roche and green harvest. The team had to be gentle with the vines so that they would be less stressed. I started picking on August 29. I think the wines are developing how I expected after tasting them from vat.”

Among his Grand Crus, habitually, I prefer the Clos Saint-Denis over the Clos de la Roche, and in 2022, there is no change, albeit a whisker between the two. They both represent wonderful, exuberant Grand Crus oozing pedigree. Both are a step above his Bonnes-Mares this year. His range of Morey-Saint-Denis is amongst the best, alongside, I would say, Virgile Lignier's (Lignier-Michelot) and Laurent Lignier’s. They showcase the finest lieux-dits, such as Les Ruchots and Les Blanchards. As I mentioned, these wines don’t tend to show their best when young and benefit from several years of bottle aging.

Cyprien Arlaud’s winery is currently undergoing expansion. Upon entering his winery, there is a faint smell of concrete, common across the region where so much construction work is taking place. This will be important for Arlaud’s working methods, as the more capacious barrel chai will allow him to reduce the barrels from three layers to one, facilitating cellar work. Another recent change is that the ‘&Arlaud’ label has changed to ‘Cyprien Arlaud’ from the 2019 vintage, since those contracted vineyards are now biodynamic.

“We had a good start despite the frost. We were quite lucky in the Côte de Nuits, and there are different factors behind this. First, the main one, I organised all the final pruning in March. I’d already invested in our 17-person team so that we could prune 18 hectares in 10 days. Every month, we prune according to the lunar cycle. During the three nights of frost, on the first two nights, I did not light the candles, just the third night when we got the snow, and I wanted to avoid the risk. We lit around ten hectares [of vines]. The frosted vines had good second generation fruit thanks to the viticulture and pruning. Another factor is the fact that Morey-Saint-Denis was less affected by the frost compared to other appellations. The worst aspect of the frost is not losing quantity, but that vineyards completely stop, complicating the growing season. It was the first season with high pressure of mildew and oïdium, but we are a big team, vigilant in the vineyards. It was important for me not to spray too much sulphur and copper. It is tempting to spray more; however, it makes the vineyard sick and less able to ripen the fruit. So I did frequent sprays with small quantities: no powdered sulphur in the first treatments and instead using essential oils and hydrola [the water that comes from the distillation of essential oils].”

“We started picking on 23 September and then over the following 12 days, the Premier and Grand Crus around 25 or 26 September. In the end, the yield was around 35hl/ha for the Grand Crus, sometimes 40hl/ha elsewhere. I knew 2021 would be a more fragile vintage, so I was encouraged not to rack the wine during ageing as I felt this would take something away. So far, I’m pretty happy with the vintage. It’s a vintage that shows the capacity of our team.”

Amongst dozens of winemakers interviewed during my tastings, Arlaud is perhaps the one most prepared, principally by building a strong workforce that could keep on top of things in the vineyard, and the results can be seen in a startling performance of his 2021s. “A more challenging vintage can be more fulfilling,” Arlaud remarks. “I am not saying I like that kind of adrenalin, but there is satisfaction; there is a kind of positive energy within the team. I find the wines have a sucrosity and a sweetness. They are like kids. They make me forget about the complications of the vintage. Sometimes the wines remind me of the spirit of 2007.”

There is a deeply impressive set of wines here. I am bejewelled by a breathtaking Clos Saint-Denis and fabulous Gevrey-Chambertin Les Combottes. Overall, this is a vintage where Arlaud batted back the curveballs thrown by the growing season and came out victorious.

Cyprien Arlaud has established this domaine as one of Morey-Saint-Denis’s frontrunners. I tasted both domaine and négoce wines, the latter under his “&Arlaud” brand name. “I was a bit worried about the water situation in August as it was so dry, but I was amazed how the vines extracted moisture,” Arlaud explained, as we tasted in his barrel cellar. “They are on the limit [with the spate of recent dry seasons.] The first vines of the négoce were picked on 13 September when the berries were already at 14° potential alcohol, whereas for the Domaine Arlaud wines, the maximum alcohol is 13.5°. It was a question of timing - harvesting the right place at the right time. Some blocks we had to return two or three times for optimal picking of say, the younger vines and older vines. The window was short in order to find balance. You had to be reactive [in terms of instructing pickers into the vines at precisely the right time.] The yields are lower than last year, the lowest in Clos de la Roche at 25hl/ha and the highest in the Villages at around 42hl/ha, still quite reasonable. The Village Cru level is higher in 2019 than in 2018. I have a feeling that the yeasts have adapted to the climate after 2018 with a capacity to ferment the sugar more efficiently. Normal cuvaison was around 20 days, maybe a little faster than usual, three of four days less. During the fermentation we had more must than usual and it was just like candy at the beginning in terms of the perfume. I have never found that before. The freshness of the vintage was pushing the fruity aspect. The acidity is around 3.40pH after malo with high tartaric acid that renders the wines very fresh considering berry ripeness. We used more or less the same new oak, 15% for the Charmes-Chambertin and Clos de la Roche but no new oak on the Bonnes-Mares and the Clos Saint-Denis. I think 2019 is one of the best vintages that I have made - ripe and fresh.”

A very fine set of wines here. The heart of the portfolio is the clutch of Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Crus that showed well, particularly the Les Ruchots and a persistent Les Blanchards. One of two flirted with excessive sweetness on the finish. I particular liked Arlaud’s Gevrey-Chambertin Combottes, nothing could match the killer Bonnes-Mares, one of the very best that you will find in this vintage. Arlaud’s style is a little more opulent and a tad more high-toned than other producers and repays cellaring.

Cyprien Arlaud has really taken this domaine to new levels in recent years. He is one of the most dedicated practitioners of biodynamics in the vineyard, despite the traumas of frost, hail and mildew in recent years. “I did some whole bunch on the Grand Crus and Premier Crus, but not the Villages,” Cyprien Arlaud told me as I took a pew in his tasting room. “The maximum was 30%, around the same as last year. We started the harvest on September 6 and finished around 10 days later. The picking was fairly easy. I had to adapt the picking because it was all about the yields. I did a green harvest in July for the Grand Cru and Premier Cru and the Chambolle-Musigny Village, which was severely affected by the frost in 2016. It was strange to go in the vineyard and take off bunches and accept that the growing season was generous. I was looking for depth and body in the wines, so I had to convince my staff to leave earlier for vacation and come back mid-August in order to do the green harvest. I cut and analyzed the grapes and when I did that, I could see they were close to phenolic ripeness. It is true that the vintage could have accepted a higher yield, but in the end, we cropped at around 40hl/ha. The natural alcohol level is around 13° for some Premier Crus, which is not too high. I chaptalised for just a few wines including the Village Crus.” Arlaud’s wines tend to veer towards the blacker side of the fruit spectrum rather than red, feeling quite dense in their youth and demanding bottle age. The standout this year is the Clos de la Roche, but there are plenty of other fine crus in 2017, especially among the cluster of Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Crus, where the Les Ruchots really stands out.

The Arlauds normally harvest their 15 hectares of vines in 9 days but in 2016 it took 15 (beginning on September 24) to get proper ripeness owing to differences in grape maturity from the effects of the spring frost. Estate-wide production was down by 50% from normal. There were two surprises, said Cyprien Arlaud in October. First, at the end of the maturity, the sugars were going up very quickly “and could go crazy in just three days.” Also, he told me, the yeasts gave more alcohol than usual, which he attributed to the high amount of microbiological activity during the damp spring. “But the vintage could also give us surprising acidity,” he noted, “up to 4.8 grams per liter,” and the wines have healthy pHs and good balance. None of the fruit surpassed 13.5% potential alcohol, and Arlaud did not acidify or chaptalize in 2016. He noted that his viticulture now preserves acidity and results in more regular ripeness (the estate received its biodynamic certification in 2014). “Ten years ago, it was much easier to lose track of grape sugars and allow acidity levels to drop.” Arlaud has also reduced his frequency of punchdowns since 2004, but he maintains that the most important difference today is simply the balance of the fruit.

A big challenge in 2016 was the differences in flowering dates even within the same cluster, and the mix of large and small grapes. The need to use more copper sprays in the humid spring could result in thicker skins even when there was a good amount of juice, said Arlaud, who added that the warm summer weather reduced the range of maturity and brought concentration. “It’s a good Burgundian vintage, classic in the sense of freshness and site expression, and with more red fruit than black character,” he concluded. He feared getting surmaturité but feels that he “escaped that problem.” What does 2016 lack, I asked him. “A bit of tannin maturity. The wines are not quite as fine or elegant as some of the best vintages, but they have good fruit maturity and balance.”

Arlaud, who is using less new oak nowadays but a higher percentage of more recent barrels than previously, ages his village wines in just 10% to 15% new oak, but even his grand crus get no more than 25%. He also cut back somewhat on his use of whole clusters in '16, limiting the percentage to 20% for his grand crus and top premier crus and destemming his village wines entirely. With one exception, the ‘16s were still in barrel when I tasted them in November.

Arlaud thinks his 2015s will be for long aging, noting that the dryness of the summer “blocked the degradation of the tartaric acidity. You can find wines that have both strong acidity and surmaturité,” he noted. He pointed out that '15 would normally have been a very difficult vintage for his Bonnes-Mares on white clay, but he has been working this soil with a horse and he believes that that helped the roots absorb the needed rainfall in August, helping to reduce hydric stress. But he’s also convinced that many 2015 reds will always be hard.

Cyprien Arlaud bases his picking dates on "ripeness and texture of tannins" and is not afraid of the possibility that acidity levels will drop as he waits for phenolic maturity. He told me that he had problems with loss of acidity in 2000, 2006 and 2007, but not in recent years thanks to his use of cover crop between the rows.

Arlaud started harvesting on September 7, with potential alcohol levels mostly between 13% and 13.5%, and did not chaptalize. The only sorting was to eliminate very small berries on his younger vines that did not ripen properly, plus those that had been burned as a result of his sulfur treatments against mildew. He destemmed his village cuvées entirely in 2015, noting that he "likes to use vendange entier just for certain wines" (between 20% and 30% for all of his grand crus in 2015) and that he doesn't want to change the style of wines his customers are used to. Arlaud chills his incoming fruit to about 13 degrees C. if it comes in warmer than that, and it can take five to ten days for the fermentations to start. Like many of his colleagues on the Côte de Nuits, Arlaud reduced his percentage of new oak in 2015, to 15% for his premier crus and 20% for his grand crus. None of the Arlaud '15s had been racked at the time of my November visit.

Cyprien Arlaud told me in November that he believed at the outset that 2014 was less good than 2013. But today, he went on, he’s “getting more and more pleasure from the young wines and raising his estimation of the vintage. ” He pointed out that 2000, 2006, 2007 were previous dry years that suffered a greater loss of acidity during heat spikes than 2014 (or even 2015) did.

He began harvesting in 2014 on September 15, eliminating a bit of rot from some vineyards and carrying out a week-long pre-fermentation cold soak. Arlaud, who as a general rule has been reducing his use of sulfur dioxide and chaptalization, told me that none of his wines were chaptalized more than 0. 5%. Two grand crus, he added, weren’t chaptalized at all and the finished wines will be around 12. 7% alcohol. Arlaud also noted that he hasn't done more than three pigeages per cuvée since 2004. Yields here were healthy in 2014: about 45 hectoliters per hectare for the village wines, 40 for the premier cru and 38 for the grand crus.

This was the first estate I visited during my November marathon, and so it provided me with my first impression of the young 2013s. The Arlaud 2013s are distinctly red-fruity in character, with tangy, crunchy cranberry and pomegranate flavors and high-pitched floral aromas suggesting early harvesting. But in fact Cyprien Arlaud assured me that he and his brother Romain brought in most of their fruit after October 6 with relatively healthy potential alcohol levels in the 12% to 12.5% range (the wines were chaptalized no more than half a degree, according to Arlaud). Yields were higher here than in 2012 but sill moderate (about 40 hectoliters per hectare for the village wines and 35 for the grand crus). These are sappy, pungently fruity 2013s, some of them a bit tart in the early going. For his part, Arlaud describes them as "fresh and expressive of their terroirs, like the 2010s, but without quite the hauteur of 2010."

The Arlaud brothers did not start harvesting in 2012 until September 25 and Cyprien Arlaud maintained that the rain that fell on the 21st and 22nd was constructive for quality as it was the first real precipitation since early August (some vines had been affected by hydric stress at the end of that month). "A couple of cuvees lost a bit of alcohol," he told me, "but the rain brought more perfume to the grapes." In any event, most potential alcohol levels were in the very healthy 12.5% to 13% range (only a couple of wines were chaptalized), and Arlaud said that there was a narrower range of ripeness than in 2011. Yields were in the low 30 to 35 hectoliters-per-hectare range, "similar to 2010, as the flowering in 2012 was very tough for the old vines." He vinifies with about 30% whole clusters "but never more, as we only do this with our old vines and only about a third of our vines are very old--except for the Sentiers, the Charmes-Chambertin and the Clos Saint-Denis." Interestingly, Arlaud maintained that the inclusion of some whole clusters has less of a pH-raising effect now than it used to have, a phenomenon that he attributes to organic farming and possibly to lower levels of potassium in the soil nowadays. With two exceptions, the 2012s here were racked in July but were still in barrel.

The Arlaud brothers handled 2011 masterfully, bringing in fruit with a degree less potential alcohol than usual, chaptalizing only up to half a degree, and vinifying with an especially light hand. We did a one-week cold soak and a coolish fermentation (30 degrees C. "at maximum"), then four days of post-maceration fermentation, said Cyprien Arlaud. "It was important to wait for good maturity of the tannins before picking," he added, but he did a lighter extraction because he was "not 100% confident about the phenolic material." Each cuvee was punched down only three times in total. Incidentally, Arlaud credits his Paris-based expat American broker Peter Vezan for his coaching efforts in recent years. The result, he told me, has been steady progression in the quality of work in the cellar, especially in terms of when and how much SO2 to use and when to bottle. No 2011s were yet racked at the time of my mid-November visit.