2014 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru

Arnaud Mortet has bottled a pure, terroir-driven set of 2014s from fruit picked ripe but early, with healthy acidity levels “You can drink the smaller wines on the early side, but the vintage has a lovely acid balance to support aging,” he noted (In contrast, he believes that the 2015s will remain closed for ten years) The pHs are a bit lower in the 2014s than in the 2015s

Arnaud Mortet has bottled a pure, terroir-driven set of 2014s from fruit picked ripe but early, with healthy acidity levels. “You can drink the smaller wines on the early side, but the vintage has a lovely acid balance to support aging,” he noted. (In contrast, he believes that the 2015s will remain closed for ten years.) The pHs are a bit lower in the 2014s than in the 2015s.

Still only in his early 30s, Arnaud Mortet is making more refined wines than his father Denis ever did. He has moved steadily in the direction of gentler extraction in search of more elegance. In 2014, he did only four or five punchdowns per cuvée, which is now his normal practice. He has also shortened the length of the cuvaison from the 25 to 27 days practiced by his father to 19 or 20 today. The cold maceration here is now less extreme, as Mortet only lowers the temperature of the must to 12 or 13 degrees Centigrade (about 55 degree Fahrenheit). He also used less new oak for his 2014s than ever before, and the wines will go into cuves later than previously.

Mortet told me it was necessary to pull leaves and carry out a green harvest in 2014. These measures allowed him to pick ripe fruit on the early side, starting on September 12; potential alcohol levels were typically around 12% and the wines were chaptalized about one degree. Malic acidity levels, which Mortet says are always high with his vines, were healthy in 2014 and the secondary fermentations only finished in September. The wines had been sulfited in September and were still in barrels, unracked, at the time of my December visit.

Mortet considers 2014 to be a great year, along with 2012 and 2010. The wines will be much more fun to drink young than the 2013s, which he says have less phenolic maturity, but they will also age well. He noted that his favorite vintage to date (his first was 2006, following the death of his father earlier that year) is 2012. Incidentally, beginning with 2014 Mortet now offers some Mazi-Chambertin and Bonnes-Mares through a metayage arrangement with an investor.