2020 Bourgogne Pinot Noir

After admiring his koi fish, who are blissfully unaware that they are swimming in one of Burgundy’s most hallowed Domaines, Christophe Roumier and I descended down to his cellar to taste through his 2023. “I did a green harvest with some younger vines that are planted with older vines,” he tells me. “In two parcels, we dropped half the crop. I tasted the skins before harvest and noticed the ripeness of tannins did not occur until just before we started harvest. I think the heat blocked the maturation. I started picking on September 13. We had to sort as there were some shriveled berries, mainly from the younger vines, but it is common with that kind of volume. I could keep the same level of whole bunch as other years. I acidified a tiny amount because of the stems [that decrease acidity]. It is a good-sized crop, the largest since 1999, yet there was no overproduction. I like the style, combining a tannic base with ripe fruit, so the wines are not too dark. Even though there was little malo, the wines have become more subtle. Acid levels are a little weak as pH was a bit high.”

This is an exemplary set of wines from Roumier. The two wines that made the biggest impression were the Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses and the Les Cras. The Bonnes-Mares is wonderful and might perhaps keep its nose in front of the Musigny, which comprises two barrels or 600 bottles this year, which is 600 more than there will be in 2024.

Christophe Roumier and I conducted much of the tasting, sporting matching bobble hats in different colors (gifts from an importer from the previous visit). At least they kept our heads warm. Roumier was typically self-effacing as I tasted through his complete range of 2022s. “It wasn’t a complicated growing season, apart from small worries about powdery mildew,” he explains. “I started picking on September 3, and there was around one week of picking, like normal. The highest alcohol level is 13.6%, and it’s quite uniform. I shortened the pre-fermentation cold soak to four or five days instead of nine or ten, so the cuvaison is shorter. I did three or four punch downs.” I asked Roumier whether he could see differences between the terre blanches and terre rouges soils in Bonnes-Mares in the light of global warming. He told me that he felt the latter is more impacted by dryness, yet Bonnes-Mares copes well as a Grand Cru. I won’t blather on about individual cuvées because these were exemplary wines, surfeit with tension, complexity and terroir expression. Above all, these wines set tastebuds alight. The good news is that there are greater quantities than in 2021, and Roumier said he would probably reduce prices on a few cuvées because he feels that it’s the right thing to do. That will not be reflected in the secondary market, where speculation renders these some of the most expensive in Burgundy. Unlike others, Roumier has no interest in the pecuniary side of the business, wishing that people would simply enjoy his wines and perhaps allow them to mature in bottle, where they can often evolve into wines of utter profundity.

“There cannot be anything you don’t know after six weeks,” Christophe Roumier quips when I drop in at his winery. True, but then again, you always find something new with each visit, and this is no different, even if I have reached visit number 121. “We were not as affected by the April frost, never at the same level as Côte de Beaune. Altogether, the volume is down, but it’s difficult to say exactly how much, maybe around 25%? Some parcels were cropped at around 15-16hL/ha while others were not frozen, resulting in an average yield of around 24hL/ha. Rainfall was also challenging, and my team was very efficient at spraying (organic), including two Sundays, to protect against mildew. We started the harvest on 24 September. Ripeness was good in the end, with just a little botrytis in the final days of harvest, but that was negligible. I did the same cuvaison, 20 to 22 days including pre-fermentation soak, with the normal levels of whole bunches. I decided we needed a little more punch down for extraction with a little less new oak. The wines will be bottled a bit earlier in January, so they are all in vat at the moment. They have high pH with a lot of malic, so the barrel change has been like it was 25 to 30 years ago. The malo finished at the end of June, and reduction never really showed. I like the style of wine, the lightness but with flavour, the delicacy of tannins and transparency. It breaks the run of black fruit vintages.”

What I have learned to appreciate about Roumier is that putting aside the clamour for his wines and secondary market prices, there is an honesty about his wines that means they reflect strengths and weaknesses. They are not faultless. They are not infallible. Tasting through his 2021s, some left me breathless with praise and others just missed a bit of substance. Yet the common thread throughout these wines, and indeed several mature vintages encountered during my Burgundy marathon, is they are wines you want to drink, as banal as that reads. These are always reds with freshness and vibrancy that urge you back for one more sip.

Christophe Roumier asked me if I would not mind bringing my own stemware and spittoon. It might sound excessively prudent to some, though personally I expected more to do this. I was happy to oblige. You cannot be too safe. And throughout our tasting Roumier dutifully stood four or five metres away as I tasted his 2019s and a selection of 2018s.

“It was an early season like 2018 and 2020. We had some rain until the middle of March and then it became dry,” he told me. “Bud break was around the end of March, so we were afraid of frost, which fortunately did not show up. It was an easy season overall because it was dry. Flowering was around the beginning of June, the fruit set was consistent from vine to vine. Temperatures increased from the end of June and throughout July, becoming slightly lower in August. It was so dry that some of the vines halted the ripening process. We started picking on 16 September under good conditions and given the early bud break we should have picked earlier. So, in the end it was a long hang time. The growing season was a rare chance to have ripeness and acidity together, the fruit was so ripe and clean with good juice to skin ratio. The malos were between end of May and beginning of July. Before malos, the wines were very tight but afterwards I could really see their structure, without the heaviness that you occasionally get with the 2018s. The wines have not been racked and at the moment they don’t seem to need racking, so they may stay that way until bottling next spring, probably April. The good surprise is that we kept the acidity. Tartaric acid is at very good levels although pH could be a little lower. Alcohol is generally lower than 2018, the highest in Bonnes-Mares at 13.8° whereas the 2018 was over 14.0°.” Asking Roumier what appeals to him about the vintage he replied: “I like the density of the 2019s, their frame and transparency. The vintage can dominate the style of the wines but in 2019 I feel reassured that the terroir shows through. Initially I thought they could be compared to 2015, but bigger in terms of alcohol and dimension, in fact they are similar in balance. I love this vintage. I’ve liked it from the beginning, which is not always the case. It has been good from the start of the ageing and if you asked me to make 2019 again, I would.”

It might be playing the same old record, but Roumier’s wines excel in 2019 and I can easily understand why he waxed lyrical. They just have a sense of brightness and density combined with concentration. They defy the hypothetical style that a season like 2019 would produce. In particular, Chambolle-Musigny Les Cras stood out, whilst among the Les Amoureuses/Bonnes-Mares/Musigny triumvirate, it is the Bonnes-Mares that had its nose in front. Roumier, instead, is smitten by Les Amoureuses. The Musigny is reduced to one new barrel this year, even including all the stems, so good luck tracking down one of those 300-odd bottles. Roumier also opened his 2019 Corton-Charlemagne, a wine that since 2014 has been made with an early malo created by heating the cellar. Bottled prior to harvest, I prefer the 2019 over the 2018 tasted alongside, since it demonstrated a little more precision and charm.

Christophe Roumier, for sure the most affable winemaker in the Côte d'Or, guided me through his 2018s when I dropped into his domaine in the heart of Chambolle-Musigny. “The only difficulty was in spring to mid-June because of the rain, which fell every three days, so the mildew pressure was strong. But it went OK," Roumier told me. "Then the weather was dry and warm, which broke the mildew cycle. August saw high temperatures and for the young vines it was a little challenging. Some of the vines stopped their growth cycle. I started picking on 5 September and it took around six and a half days. It was difficult to choose the picking date as there were so many opportunities. Before, when I tasted the berries, we knew the sugars were fine. But I was convinced there was some progress to be made and the skins could be riper, so I accepted more alcohol in order to make sure that the tannins were ripe. Looking back, I might have employed a bigger team in order to pick more quickly, even so, I would have started the same date. The alcohol levels in the Musigny and Ruchottes-Chambertin are at 13.1/13.2% alcohol and the highest is Chambolle-Musigny Les Cras at 14.2%. Most are around 13.6-13.8%. The yields are just 3% less than in 2017, which was a normal crop. The vinification was fine but the higher alcohol levels meant that some sugar could be released after the pressing. Consequently, these could be slow in terms of finishing their alcoholic fermentation and so I kept these wines in tank for another couple of days. It meant that some malos started immediately, before the sugars were finished, and some of my malos didn’t finish until the beginning of July. I felt happier with these wines after the malolactic was over - they were a bit like "monsters" before. Now they feel fresher. I like the way they are, so I will keep them on the lees until we will prepare them for bottling. SO2 was added in July and they will be transferred in stainless steel in January for bottling in March." I asked Roumier for his overall impression of the 2018 growing season. "If you look back on the 1960s and 1970s when it was so wet, it was extremely difficult to achieve ripeness. That is no longer a problem. It’s a peculiar vintage. The fruit was just beautiful. I compare it with 2003 in terms of acidity and alcohol levels are a little higher, the tannins softer than in 2003. I feel better with these 2018s than 2003 as the tannins are softer and less astringent than in 2003. Tartaric levels are low. That is what it has in common with 2005. Or it could be 1990 as well." Roumier has overseen some wonderful 2018s crowned by a fantastic Bonnes-Mares and Les Amoureuses. I am more cautious towards his Les Cras that I felt was compromised by some warmth on the finish.

Having been blessed with verticals of both Christophe Roumier’s Bonnes-Mares and Musigny in the previous 12 months, I have already enjoyed more than my fair share of Roumier’s wines. But as I stated in the introduction to my Bonnes-Mares article, I do not put Roumier or indeed any other grower on a pedestal by dint of reputation or clamor for their wines. I take them as they come and appraise them objectively, just as Roumier does himself.

“It was an easy growing season,” he remarked as we descended into his barrel cellar. “We had to undertake some green harvesting in Chambolle Les Cras and in Bonnes-Mares in order to control the vigour. Then we started the picking on September 8 and harvested over the following six days. The Premier Crus include between 50% and 60% whole bunches this year.” Details of new oak can be gleaned from individual tasting notes.

On the day of my visit, two or three of the barrel samples were reduced, much to Roumier’s surprise, since they had shone brightly just a couple of days before - the caprice of a wine’s élevage. Yet it is clear that Roumier has overseen some sublime 2017s, and not just the 400-odd bottles of Musigny. The star this year is not the Bonnes-Mares but the Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses. Ignore their statuses: these two vie for supremacy each year and I suspect that the Premier Cru might just have the upper hand in 2017. I also adore the Chambolle-Musigny Les Cras, which is often endowed with more complexity and gravitas than Roumier’s Combottes, and the vintage puts a wedge between them in qualitative terms. As usual, you will find two labels under Christophe Roumier’s own name, the Charmes-Chambertin and Ruchottes-Chambertin, both outstanding, now joined by his métayage in Echézeaux shared with Arnaud Mortet. The maiden 2016 was whittled down to just a quarter-size barrel and consequently felt too oaky last year. The 2017 vintage bestows two-and-a-quarter barrels. It is much better, far more balanced and less oppressed by the cooperage – a welcome addition to the range.

Though not every 2017 from Christophe Roumier merits superlatives, as always, what I like is the fact that he translates the vagaries of the growing season. There is nothing pretentious or overly ambitious, nothing self-aggrandizing about Roumier’s wines. Even tasting from barrel, you think how much you’d like to abscond with that bottle and drink it. What else is wine for?

The secondary buds carried very little fruit in 2016, and the new shoots took another three to four weeks to grow, said Christophe Roumier. “But the good, hot summer compressed the differences in ripeness.” Yields varied dramatically, as Roumier’s home village of Chambolle-Musigny was hit hard by the frost. He lost about 50% of his fruit in Musigny and Les Amoureuses, two-thirds in Les Cras, and all of his Bourgogne Rouge and Corton-Charlemagne. His tiny quantity of Chambolle-Musigny Les Combottes went into his Chambolle villages.

Roumier started harvesting on September 24, bringing in what he described as “ripe, clean fruit—normal-sized grapes with thick skins”; some parcels were as high as 13% potential alcohol and did not require chaptalization. Roumier told me that he did not change his normal vinification in 2016, except for doing fewer punchdowns than usual. The wines have lowish total acidity but average pHs, Roumier told me, and he believes that, with their generosity and ripe, broad tannins, the ‘16s are built to age.

Roumier described 2015 as “a great vintage with a very good balance between strength and elegance, and the acidity and tannins for good aging capacity.” His only quibble was that some wines are a bit too high in alcohol for his taste. And he also believes that 2015 generally shows a tendency toward reduction, and that the wines are already shutting down in bottle. Like a number of producers I visited this fall and winter, Roumier is now using new corks from Bouchons Trescases (labeled “ND”) that are individually tested for TCA using gas chromatography.

Christophe Roumier was a late harvester in 2015, picking between September 10 and 15. He had originally planned for a September 3 start but moved that date back a week because the tannins were not yet ripe; he also wanted to avoid the “hardness of structure” of the 2005s. “The rain that started on the 12th de-stressed the skins without rotting them and was positive for the quality of the wines,” he asserted. The crop was modest in size, with the average yield of just 31 hectoliters per hectare. Incidentally, Roumier noted that vintage 2016 brought his smallest harvest since 1971, as the late April frost hit Chambolle-Musigny hard.

Roumier increased his use of whole-cluster fermentation in 2015. He reduced his number of punchdowns, doing more pumpovers instead, but he maintained the normal length of his cuvaisons. “We had thick skins and big pips in 2015,” said Roumier. “The wines are more about fruit and flesh than minerality. They’re classy wines with an element of power. They’re already complex but I’m sure they will age well and bring more in time. And the dense, velvety tannins make a real difference in 2015.”

Christophe Roumier's 2012 are among the highlights of the vintage. As is the case in pretty much every cellar, yields are down sharply, mostly because of poor weather during flowering, which will make these wines even harder to find than normal. Overall, there are some parallels with 2010, although the 2012s have lower acidities and strike me as having a little more overt depth as well. Roumier fans will also want to consider the Charmes and Ruchottes, both of which are made under métayage agreements and sold under the Christophe Roumier label.

I tasted the 2010s twice from barrel, once in the summer just as the wines were about to be racked and then again during my early December visit. On both occasions the wines were stellar. Like virtually all of his colleagues, co-manager Aubert de Villaine was surprised by the level of the 2010s given all of the challenges of the growing season. I could repeat everything de Villaine told me, but there is no better source than the man himself, so readers who want to learn more about the 2010 harvest may want to take a look at my interview with de Villaine on this site. Overall, I am very impressed with the 2010s with the exception of the Corton, which appears to be a notch or two below the 2009. The 2010 that most greatly exceeds its appellation and historical level of quality is the Echézeaux. I also tasted the 2010 Vosne-Romanée Cuvée Duvault-Blochet but the domaine had not yet decided if the wine would be released. I will report on the 2009s in my April article.