2010 Gevrey-Chambertin En Champs Vieilles Vignes

Two thousand ten presents an excellent example of Arnaud Mortet's evolving style, as the wines are fresh, more gently extracted than previously, and less obviously oaky, and with nothing vegetal about them. "My father liked more extracted wines, but I prefer the style of wine made by Rousseau and Roumier," he told me. Mortet noted that he's never seen so much millerandage, especially without hard tannins, and that the tiny grapes, along with two very good weeks of weather before the harvest, saved the year. Mortet, who started harvesting on September 23, told me he did no more than a half-degree of chaptalization (the crus are now in the vicinity of 13.2%). He destems 100% of his fruit and tastes everything every day during vinification ("I work by tasting"), normally doing two or three very short punchdowns daily (i.e., a maximum of eight minutes). He's steadily cutting back on the percentage of new oak (it's lower still for the 2011s) and likes the contribution of one-year-old barrels.