2015 Pommard Vaumuriens

The Côte de Beaune produced very concentrated wines in 2015, said manager/enologist Yves Confuron, “but the balance of these wines is even more impressive. The ‘15s are riper than the 2007s and deeper than the 2010s but with similar tension and purity,” he added. All of the fruit here was picked very late, after more than three inches of rain fell between September 12 and 17, but the three combes that chill Pommard prevented rot from taking hold, said Confuron. The wines were still in barrel, unracked, at the time of my November visit.

Incidentally, Domaine de Courcel typically replaces its vines as they die, rather than pulling out entire sections of the vineyards for replanting. The advantage of this approach, noted Confuron, is that “the sweetness of the young-vines fruit can balance the extraction of tannins from the old vines, which are also lower in sugar.”