2015 Meursault Les Genevrières 1er Cru

Henri Boillot, who as usual harvested his Chardonnay early in 2016, beginning on September 21, described the year as “a classic vintage with medium-plus aging potential,” by which he means up to 15 years of drinkability. He brought in his fruit with 12.4% or 12.5% potential alcohol and chaptalized lightly. Owing to the frost, five cuvées are missing from his portfolio in 2016.

As Boillot’s press is so gentle (he uses a vertical press, like those used in Champagne), the less-ripe grapes don’t even get crushed. The pressing takes a full three and a half hours, he told me. Because he doesn’t get any heavy lees, he does not carry out a débourbage and begins with a good 15 liters of lees in each of his 350-liter barrels. The malos finished by the end of March and Boillot racked his wines at the beginning of April. He showed me samples from new barrels, to demonstrate that the oak element does not dominate his wines even in the early going. Incidentally, acidity levels in his 2016s are sound, with many of them in the range of 4.3 or 4.4 grams per liter.

Boillot finds more definition and purity of terroir in his young ‘16s than in his ‘15s, which he believes “will give early pleasure but can also age." He went on: "The ‘15s show less dynamism but are not heavy wines. They're only slightly lower in acidity than the '16s but you can notice the difference." Boillot harvested very early in 2015, starting on August 24. With pulpy grapes and thick skins, the yields in many of his parcels were closer to 30 hectoliters per hectare than to 40, he told me.

As is his usual practice, Henri Boillot harvested very early in 2015, beginning on August 25 and picking only during the morning hours "to retain freshness." He considers the vintage "classic and not atypical," noting that the growing season featured less extreme heat and fewer sunburned grapes than either 2009 or 2005. "And the rains were perfectly timed," he added. Yields for his premier crus were generally in the 38 to 40 hectoliters-per-hectare range and potential alcohol levels were between 12.5% and 12.8%, with Boillot chaptalizing most of his wines to about 13%.

He crushed about half of his Chardonnay grapes and vinified whole clusters for the rest. "The élevage had to be cool and precise," Boillot explained, adding that 2015 "is not a fragile year for those who picked early." As it was also "a clean year," Boillot did virtually no settling of the must, bringing as many as 25 liters of lees into each 350-liter barrel. He kept his cellar cold during the winter and did no batonnage. The malolactic fermentations mostly took place in January and the wines had most recently been sulfited a month before my tasting here. Post-malo acidity levels were in the healthy 4.0 to 4.5 grams-per-liter range, which Boillot attributes partly to picking most of his Chardonnay before the hot winds from the south on the last weekend of August. Boillot uses 350-liter barrels for the overwhelming majority of his wines, about 50% of them new for his premier crus.