2004 Beaune Clos de la Mousse 1er Cru

"Two thousand two is like a blade, while 2005 is more generous," said winemaker Philip Prost. "The 2005s have riper acidity as well as more alcohol and extract." The skins were thick and Prost carried out a week-long pre-fermentation cold soak, but he noted that he did not extract heavily, limiting punchdowns to the first six or seven days of the fermentation itself. Later pigeages in the presence of alcohol would have given the wines a bitterness, said Prost, who believed that the seeds in the 2005 pinots were not completely ripe.Prost vinified his grand crus and a few of the premier crus with about 25% of their stems. Incidentally, Prost believes that the 2005s show a slight salinity; in this dry year, he said, the water in the wine came only from the soil, rather than directly from rainfall. "This gives the wine a crispness and a clean aftertaste, but it's not exactly minerality," he told me. Incidentally, Prost was hardly the only winemaker I visited in November who observed that the 2005 grand crus were evolving particularly slowly. Of course, in Bouchard's new colder, more humid cellar, the barrels retain more CO2, which generally slows down the development of the wines during elevage.

Bernard Hervet, who has guided both Bouchard and William Fevre through their respective comebacks over the last decade, ended his relationship with owner Joseph Henriot as of the beginning of February, but both companies have extremely capable winemakers in place (Philippe Prost at Bouchard and Didier Seguier at William Fevre). I tasted in November with Hervet and Prost. Hervet noted that "one will need to age the 2004 reds to allow them to show their personalities. "A saignee of about 3% was done to red and white wines in 2004, which winemaker Prost described as "like washing off the grapes, which were dusty. The result of this step was purer wines. "Prost used a higher percentage of new oak than usual-including 100% for the grand crus-to bring more tannins naturally. "The vegetative cycle in '04 was bizarre," noted Hervet, and the wines were missing a bit of fine tannins. Hervet noted that 2004 was the first time the house did not start picking on the ban de vendange. "We waited for three days, even for our earliest-maturing sites," he said.