2014 Beaune Clos de la Mousse 1er Cru

Winemaker Frédéric Weber described the harvest of 2014 as completely different on the Côte de Beaune than on the Côte de Nuits On the Côte de Beaune, “the grapes were scraggly and loose because of the late-June hailstorm; the skins were thick, with a lot of tannins, and the berries gave little juice,” he explained Owing to the high skin-to-juice ratio, he reduced maceration time for those wines, punching the cap just once a day at the beginning, then working more by infusion after that But maceration was longer for wines from the Côte de Nuits “because the grapes were more classic, with more juice” Although his use of vendange entier depended on the plot, Weber generally kept about 10% to 20% whole clusters for his Côte de Beaune wines but more like 30% to 50% for those from the Côte de Nuits He finds the finished Côte de Beaune wines “more concentrated but without hard or green tannins,” while those from the Côte de Nuits are "juicier and fleshier” And he predicts that the wines will give a lot of pleasure to amateurs of Burgundy for their definition and complexity

Winemaker Frédéric Weber described the harvest of 2014 as completely different on the Côte de Beaune than on the Côte de Nuits. On the Côte de Beaune, “the grapes were scraggly and loose because of the late-June hailstorm; the skins were thick, with a lot of tannins, and the berries gave little juice,” he explained. Owing to the high skin-to-juice ratio, he reduced maceration time for those wines, punching the cap just once a day at the beginning, then working more by infusion after that. But maceration was longer for wines from the Côte de Nuits “because the grapes were more classic, with more juice.” Although his use of vendange entier depended on the plot, Weber generally kept about 10% to 20% whole clusters for his Côte de Beaune wines but more like 30% to 50% for those from the Côte de Nuits. He finds the finished Côte de Beaune wines “more concentrated but without hard or green tannins,” while those from the Côte de Nuits are "juicier and fleshier.” And he predicts that the wines will give a lot of pleasure to amateurs of Burgundy for their definition and complexity.

There were really two types of Pinot Noir grapes in 2014, according to winemaker Frédéric Weber. On the Côte de Beaune, the berries were well-aerated and had thick skins and good tannins. The stems were mostly ripe but the seeds less so, so Weber reduced total maceration time and did a gentler extraction (just one pigeage per day for the first five or six days of the fermentation and no remontage) for fear of getting green tannins. He vinified with 10% to 25% whole clusters only where the stems were sufficiently ripe.

But the fruit on the Côte de Nuits was “more traditional and classic,” he told me in November. “We had good average yields; the grapes were juicier but had thinner skins and riper stems. ” Here, he vinified with 40% to 50% whole clusters and did a more classic vinification with two punchdowns per day.

Weber noted that the weather changed totally after the damaging hailstorm on June 28. July was rainy and cool and it was hard to work in the vineyards, he said. There were some problems with sunburn at the end of the month, especially on the Côte de Beaune. August was normal but not hot, with the northeast wind taking over at the end of the month. September then saved the vintage with sunny, warm afternoons and cool nights. Grape sugars were around 12% for the village wines, with the crus more often 12. 8% to 13%. There were outbreaks of acid rot, he reported, “but we simply marked the affected vines and didn’t harvest them. ”

Weber believes the 2014s have the balance for good aging, while the 2013 should provide earlier pleasure. But he noted that the ’14s “have become more fruity and open since July, and the tannins have lost some of their aggressivity. ”