2016 Meursault Les Clous

Winemaker Frédéric Weber considers 2016 to be “a great white wine vintage for us, as it combines the high maturity of 2015 and the high acidity of 2014.” And today he prefers the ‘16s to the ‘17s as he believes the earlier set of wines more successfully demonstrates the differences between terroirs. “The 2017s are very good but it was a hot vintage like 2015 and 2009,” he told me. The ’16s have acidity levels close to 2008 but with higher natural alcohol. And they should age very well.” As I reported last year, Bouchard’s production was down 50% in its estate vineyards, owing to frost damage and further losses to mildew.

Winemaker Frédéric Weber told me that Bouchard started harvesting in 2016 on September 21 with Pinot Noir, finishing the Chardonnay on October 1 with Corton-Charlemagne and the last Côte de Nuits vineyards on October 6, reporting that it was necessary to harvest the Côte de Beaune Pinot quickly and that the Chardonnay fruit was healthier. Due to widespread problems with mildew, many producers had to stop using organic methods in order to save their crops, he noted. Bouchard carried out more treatments than usual but still lost “another 15% to 20% of the crop to mildew”; previously many vineyards had been hit hard by the black frost on the morning of April 27. “The sun was like a magnifying glass on the ice on the buds,” he told me. Overall, production was down 50% in estate vineyards—the smallest crop after 2003—but was very heterogeneous. For example, Meursault Les Clous produced close to 40 hectoliters per hectare, while some village Meursault parcels barely yielded 5.

Weber noted that the 2016 white wines made from reasonably healthy crop levels remind him of the 2008s, which he described as a classic vintage, another late harvest with good ripeness allied to sound acidity, but emphasized that it’s hard to generalize about the ‘16s owing to the widely variable conditions. Very little chaptalization was needed as grape sugars were typically 12.5% or higher (the Montrachet actually came in at 13.2%), and Weber did a gentler but longer pressing “to get good extraction without the bad stuff,” noting that the grape skins were thick. (He's also using less and less SO2 during the vinification, which he believes is “positive for aromatic expression.”) Like the 2008s, he added, the ‘16s needed a long time in barrel to become expressive, and the malolactic fermentations have been quite long (only a few of the wines had finished when I visited Bouchard at the end of May). Weber rolled the barrels twice, as he prefers to keep the wines cloudy, and he may continue this practice as he thinks it’s better than batonnage.

In contrast to many smaller estates that have a high percentage of old vines but face great financial pressure to maintain their production, the well-capitalized Bouchard firm is in the process of renewing their vineyards in order to maintain an average vine age between 35 and 40 years, by replacing three hectares per year. This is very important for the future, said Weber. He explained that single vines that are replaced take nine years to produce usable fruit due to competition with other vines, but a replanted parcel takes just five years after the soil is allowed to rest for two years.