2020 Montrachet Grand Cru

Céline Fontaine took me through the domaine’s whites and reds because her partner, Frédéric Robert, who departed his nine-to-five at Armand Rousseau in 2018, was busy working around the winery. We had a brief chat about the 2021 vintage. Fontaine told me how she put candles in the Clos Saint-Murées and not Clos Saint-Jean and saw the difference it made, and also how stone walls countered the frost damage. Thinking back to 2020, Fontaine said, “We decided to pick the reds by tasting the berries. We started on August 20. The yield was high, but not as much as 2018, with good levels for the Chardonnay. For the reds, there was a little more than 2019. It was warm, so that concentrated the fruit by maybe 5% to 10%. We prune the Chassagne-Montrachet using Cordon Royat, which gives less juice.” First off, I have to say that these were the finest reds I have encountered from Fontaine-Gagnard. The red Chassagnes appear to have done quite well in 2020 and they conveyed a sense of Pinoté and freshness that I greatly admired. The whites, which had all been bottled (as usual, they see just one winter in barrel), are mostly excellent, especially those such as Boudriotte, Les Caillerets and La Romanée, from vines higher up the incline and located on more limestone-rich soils. The only anomaly was the Montrachet, which I feel was outplayed by the Bâtard- and Criots-Montrachet. This is a producer that has really upped its game in the last five or six years.