2012 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Champeaux 1er Cru

I tasted this year with Jean-Marie's wife Vicki, as Jean-Marie had just come down with flu and was merciful enough not to expose me on the first day of my Burgundy tour. The 2012s here are hugely rich and concentrated--no surprise, as this domain benefits from a high percentage of very old vines, and it was the old vines that were most affected by coulure and millerandage during the difficult flowering conditions. Crop levels were off 50% to 60%, said Vicki, and the harvest was done in four days flat. There was literally no selection necessary, she told me, thanks to the tiny, well-aerated grapes that were concentrated by a north wind during favorable late-season weather. As the malolactic fermentations finished last spring, the wines had been racked into cuves during the two weeks prior to my November visit. Not incidentally, Fourrier's 2011s have also turned out brilliantly.