2015 Pommard Clos des Epeneaux 1er Cru

Winemaker Paul Zinetti, who hopes to begin a replanting program in this estate’s prime Clos des Epéneaux holding next year, has been working with very low crop levels here in recent years. The estate’s production was down 60% in 2015 due in large part to the hail in 2014. And they lost 50% to 95% of their fruit to frost—and a bit of mildew—in 2016. Even in the more generous 2017 growing season, the estate made only 30% hectoliters per hectare owing to the combined aftereffects of three years of hail and frost. There will be no Volnay villages in 2016, and just a bit of village Auxey-Duresses. Production was down a full 70% in Clos des Epéneaux, despite the fact that the wall at the bottom of the clos offered some protection from the frost.

Zinetti prefers to do long maceration with gentle extraction, including keeping the wines on their skins at 28 to 30 degrees C. for 10 to 14 days after the fermentations have finished. He noted that the color and structure were slow to come in 2016, in part because the warm September weather (the estate started harvesting on September 23) made it difficult to conduct more than a three-day pre-fermentation cold soak. That was in direct contrast to 2015, when it was particularly important to avoid overextraction: he only needed to do a total of four punchdowns followed by only pumpovers for the ‘15s. Incidentally, beginning in 2014, Zinetti has been able to keep more whole berries with a new destemmer. As there is now more intracellular fermentation, he told me, "vinifying with stems is now a bit less important." In another attempt to make somewhat gentler wines here, Zinetti began using a vertical press in 2015, which he says gives a “natural filtering of the grapes and softer, rounder tannins. We can press strongly but it’s never overdone.”

Winemaker Paul Zinetti compares his young 2015s to the estate’s 2010s in terms of “their finesse, the touch of their tannins and their accessibility, not to mention their salinity and easy digestibility.” But he added that the ‘15s are denser than the ‘10s. The estate harvested from September 3 through 11 and with the exception of their vines in Auxey-Duresses, yields were still very low owing to the lingering impact of the hailstorm in 2014. The Clos des Epéneaux produced just 15 hectoliters per hectare in 2015. Grape sugars were mostly in the high 13.2% to 13.6% range, but the Auxey-Duresses came in at 14%.

“The grapes were beautiful and their thick skins need gentle extraction,” noted Zinetti, who did a total of just two pigeages for the Clos des Epéneaux, relying instead on a remontage and a délestage each day. The estate’s destemmer, he told me, retains a high percentage of whole berries. These 2015s display lovely balance and serious stuffing, as well as finishes that stimulate the salivary glands.