2016 Corton-Charlemagne 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."