2015 Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru

This estate purchased a vertical press for the 2016 harvest, then bought a second one in 2017. Co-winemaker Claude de Nicolay believes that the new devices have “changed the finishes of the wines,” giving the wines greater sweetness than their previous pneumatic press provided. In fact, the effects were obvious when I tasted Corton Bressandes from 2016 and 2015, with the more recent wine offering an element of early pleasure that’s not apparent today in the ’15. Of course, I should add that the 2016 Bressandes and Clos du Roi were also vinified in oak for the first time (they were previously made in concrete tanks), and this change has also had a softening effect on the tannins.

Happily, the ‘16s at this address are as fragrant as ever, in part owing to extensive use of whole clusters (and to the use of just 20% new oak for the Corton grand crus), but there won’t be much wine to go around, due to frost losses. Chandon de Briailles' vines in Aloxe-Corton produced just 20 to 25 hectoliters per hectare, but yields were so infinitesimal for what are normally the estate’s first five wines (all of their cuvées from Savigny-lès-Beaune and Pernand-Vergelesses) that they were all blended into a Bourgogne Gelée Royale that will be sold at the price of a premier cru. Nine hectares of vines produced a mere 8 barrels, in place of a normal 150, which works out to be roughly nothing (i.e., less than two hectoliters per hectare, all from the contra-bourgeons). Claude de Nicolay describes her '16s as "combining the fruit of 2014 and the freshness of 2010."

As this estate is known for precise, mineral-driven wines with moderate octane levels, it’s hardly surprising that co-winemaker Claude de Nicolay felt at the outset than the 2015s were too big. “But now they are more representative,” she told me in December, despite the fact that the premier crus are close to 14% alcohol and the grand crus around 13.8%. “They have very good sugar levels and high-quality tannins and the winemaking was easy to manage," she reported. "And our use of whole clusters has given the wines a floral quality.”

The estate started harvesting on September 7 and finished before the weekend of rain. Potential alcohol levels in Savigny-lès-Beaune reached 13.8% but the wines have good levels of acidity, “thanks to organic farming.” Claude and her brother François carry out a pre-fermentation cold maceration in closed tanks, which she says gives the wines more glycerol. Most of the malos did not take place until February or March, and Claude told me that for this reason 2015 is a vintage “where we decided to do a second part of the aging in barrels" [as opposed to racking the wines into tanks for their final months of _élevage]. According to Claude, “the creaminess of the 2015s will keep them on the fruity side.” She’s not sure that they will shut down after the bottling.

Following Demeter principles, Chandon de Briailles bottles with very low sulfur levels: about 15 parts per million free and 30 to 50 total. And pHs here tend to be on the high side by Burgundy standards (in the range of 3.7 to 3.8 for the reds in 2015). “But there’s nothing fragile about the 2015s,” said de Nicolay.

To give you an idea of how badly this part of the Côte de Beaune was affected by frost in 2016, Chandon de Briailles produced an infinitesimal seven barrels of wine from their 8.5 hectares of vines in Savigny-lès-Beaune and Pernand-Vergelesses. This wine will be bottled as “a super Bourgogne,” noted Claude.