2001 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

As reported in Issue 10, Jean-Charles le Bault de la Moriniere reports that 2001 has turned out to be a "very happy surprise in what was a difficult vintage". As did a number of his colleagues, he noted that 2001 began very well with excellent, relatively even flowering and a precocious start but despite the promising beginning, the growing season did not lead to homogenous ripening. We began the harvest the same day as the ban de vendange September 17th but because of the uneven ripening, the harvest took a full 10 days versus only 7 in 2000." After some serious triage work however, sugars came in around 13% in both colors and in what turned out to be important in terms of concentration, sugars and acidity, there was a lot of millerandage tiny berries that give very high solid to juice ratios). M. de la Moriniere noted that there was not a great difference between the quality of the red and the white in 2001but that the maturity of the chardonnay versus the pinot was not at all the same, favoring the chardonnay in this case. He compares the 2001 vintage to '94 or '97 but noted that it may age like 2000. As an aside, the 2000 delivers everything that it promised in barrel and is highly recommended. The 2001 is scheduled to be bottled in April.