2021 Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru

“Each vintage is a new story,” Florence Heresztyn-Mazzini eloquently tells me as I take a pew in her tasting room in the heart of Gevrey. “It was not so bad except for the frost - we lost 50% to 60% of volume depending on the vineyards. It was not the worst vintage because, unlike in 2016, in 2021 we were calmer and more prepared because of the work we have done with the organically-farmed vines. We used silica spray that helps improve the atmosphere around the leaves to enhance photosynthesis. We are more precise now and follow the vineyards more closely. We had just a three-days holiday in Paris as we had to come back and do some rognage [hedging]. You had to be technical in 2021 and we didn’t have a large amount of mildew as we maintained cover crops. The main difference is that we decided to decrease the whole bunch to 30-60%. The winemaking is traditional and prudent with pigeage as we felt it was a ‘feminine’ vintage, and we didn’t want to extract too hard. We also monitored the temperatures during fermentation. Except for the frost, it was not such a difficult vintage.”