2017 Saint-Aubin En Remilly 1er Cru

Olivier Lamy and I tasted in his new tasting room, which is far more comfortable than a day in the cellar. Before we broached in 2022s, not 2023s, since he sells the vintage that is in bottle, we went out onto the balcony where he gave me a potted guide to the climats that surround the village of Saint-Aubin and their respective soil types. “In 2022, it was drier in Saint-Aubin,” he tells me, “but we enjoy good water retention due to clayey soils. I found that the season produced smaller grapes. I started to pick on August 25 and for the reds, I used around two-thirds whole cluster. The wines were bottled in July and August.” It goes without saying that Lamy has become the most reputed winemaker in Saint-Aubin, his Haut-Densité and Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet selling for a princely sum due to an active secondary market. However, there is plenty to savor amongst his Village and Premier Crus that are more friendly on the wallet.

Like previous years, Olivier Lamy hosted a group tasting, thankfully a little smaller than one or two others. Prior to tasting, Lamy offered us a chance to snoop around his impressive, if half-built, tasting room that will provide visitors with a splendid vista across Saint-Aubin village and over the vineyards beyond. A huge expansion down in the barrel cellar, too, gives Lamy much more room to work. He assiduously left one of the walls exposed so that you can see and touch the complex stratified geology of the area.

Lamy is one of a few vignerons, along with Leflaive and Roulot, that no longer show their vintage in barrel, opting to pour the most recently bottled vintage. I detailed the stürm und drang of 2021 in last year’s report. Therefore, I shall not repeat it here. Suffice it to say that Lamy’s holdings were impacted to widely varying degrees, the hard limestone soils taking the brunt. Yet he still eked out his complete range of cuvées, albeit occasionally in drastically reduced quantities. “Some parcels on the mid-slope were cropped at just 10hL/ha,” he explains. “We de-bud the vines hard earlier in the season, during which we often had to work at weekends, including Sundays.” Lamy produces graphical data from the BIVB that suggests that the season could be seen as “normal” using some metrics. Certainly, he feels that 2021 separated those who spend time in the vines and those who do not, Lamy obviously in the former camp. He picked from September 17 to September 28 using a smaller team than usual. He conducted a 12-day cuvaison for the reds and a shorter élevage, using fewer whole bunches. Most of the wines come in between 12.5% and 13.0% alcohol, and they were bottled in July 2023, the second winter crucial in meliorating the wines.

This set of wines mocks the ill-informed traducing the 2021 vintage. That does not imply that everything came up smelling of roses. Some wines are patently better in other vintages and simply did the best that they could. Yet many are replete with tension and mineralité, at times as complex as their counterparts fortuitously born in more benevolent seasons. The core of Saint-Aubin Premier Crus vary in quality. At their best, you might call them serious, uncompromising wines that will appeal to hardcore Burgundy lovers - cerebral wines to light a dinner table demanding fermented grape juice of the highest order. One interesting aspect of the 2021s, a “perversion,” you might say, is that the frost impacted the Haut-Densité cuvées more than the regular ones since he increased planting density with younger vines that are more susceptible to the frost.

Olivier Lamy, whose father sadly passed away at the beginning of my Burgundy tour, now shows the latest bottled vintage instead of the one currently in barrel. “It was sunnier, drier and hotter than usual,” Lamy explains. “There was 50% less water and 25% more sun. We started the harvest on 21 August and finished on 31 August [very different from all the other dates I hear during those weeks apropos the 2021 vintage!]. It was earlier than in 2003. There was less juice for the Pinot Noir that was cropped at 22hL/ha, but for the whites it was 40-45hL/ha. There was a long élevage: 23 months plus one month in tank.”

Two weeks prior to my visit chez Lamy in Saint-Aubin, I heard that Olivier had tested positive for Covid, fortunately asymptomatically. I must admit trepidation upon arriving, though he was in fine fettle and took the most precautions of any winemaker by relocating the tasting outside the barrel cellar. Tasting in freezing temperatures is not ideal and I began losing sensation in my fingers midway through the Premier Crus, but better to be safe. Lamy explained how poor flowering in spring predicated low yields around 25hl/ha, though there were exceptions to the rule such as the Saint-Aubin Les Princées that reached a respectable yield at 45hl/ha. The harvest started around 7 September with the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet picked the following day. He was particularly effusive about the texture of his 2019s and the level of phenolics that he opined are better than in 2018. To prove that, he opened five 2018s and then, in what turned into a bit of a marathon tasting, a clutch of 2017s and randomly chosen bottles back to a 2002 Puligny Tremblots. For sure, Lamy’s 2019s are an exemplary showcase of Saint-Aubin’s terroirs, his white infused with compelling salinity and drive, occasionally with subtle earthy aromas that I often find accentuated with maturity. There is always an intellectual aspect to Lamy’s wines, not crowd pleasers, yet that is what can make them so compelling.

Two weeks prior to my visit chez Lamy in Saint-Aubin, I heard that Olivier had tested positive for Covid, fortunately asymptomatically. I must admit trepidation upon arriving, though he was in fine fettle and took the most precautions of any winemaker by relocating the tasting outside the barrel cellar. Tasting in freezing temperatures is not ideal and I began losing sensation in my fingers midway through the Premier Crus, but better to be safe. Lamy explained how poor flowering in spring predicated low yields around 25hl/ha, though there were exceptions to the rule such as the Saint-Aubin Les Princées that reached a respectable yield at 45hl/ha. The harvest started around 7 September with the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet picked the following day. He was particularly effusive about the texture of his 2019s and the level of phenolics that he opined are better than in 2018. To prove that, he opened five 2018s and then, in what turned into a bit of a marathon tasting, a clutch of 2017s and randomly chosen bottles back to a 2002 Puligny Tremblots. For sure, Lamy’s 2019s are an exemplary showcase of Saint-Aubin’s terroirs, his white infused with compelling salinity and drive, occasionally with subtle earthy aromas that I often find accentuated with maturity. There is always an intellectual aspect to Lamy’s wines, not crowd pleasers, yet that is what can make them so compelling.

Olivier Lamy was on hand to guide me through his 2018s from his cellar in Saint-Aubin. "There was 25% more rain in spring but 25% less in summer," he explained. "Yet there was more sunlight hours, 1,550 instead of the average 1,200. The reds were more impacted by the sun as the skins suffered more grillé. I started picking on 22 August. Some vineyards were picked on five different dates and some of the fruit picked earliest were too ripe and some picked at the end were too green! I finished the picking on 12 September."

Two weeks prior to my visit chez Lamy in Saint-Aubin, I heard that Olivier had tested positive for Covid, fortunately asymptomatically. I must admit trepidation upon arriving, though he was in fine fettle and took the most precautions of any winemaker by relocating the tasting outside the barrel cellar. Tasting in freezing temperatures is not ideal and I began losing sensation in my fingers midway through the Premier Crus, but better to be safe. Lamy explained how poor flowering in spring predicated low yields around 25hl/ha, though there were exceptions to the rule such as the Saint-Aubin Les Princées that reached a respectable yield at 45hl/ha. The harvest started around 7 September with the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet picked the following day. He was particularly effusive about the texture of his 2019s and the level of phenolics that he opined are better than in 2018. To prove that, he opened five 2018s and then, in what turned into a bit of a marathon tasting, a clutch of 2017s and randomly chosen bottles back to a 2002 Puligny Tremblots. For sure, Lamy’s 2019s are an exemplary showcase of Saint-Aubin’s terroirs, his white infused with compelling salinity and drive, occasionally with subtle earthy aromas that I often find accentuated with maturity. There is always an intellectual aspect to Lamy’s wines, not crowd pleasers, yet that is what can make them so compelling.

Olivier Lamy was in sparkling form when I visited his winery in Saint-Aubin. Having visited here a for number of years, it has long been the yardstick by which I have measured Saint-Aubin, though Lamy’s range extends to reds, a sprinkling of Chassagne and Puligny-Montrachets and a couple of fascinating high-density cuvées that include his single Grand Cru in Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet.

“There was a bit of frost in spring,” Lamy told me down in his cellar, which lies two levels below ground, “and so we had a small harvest for the Bourgogne Blanc. I started the harvest early, on August 26, picking at 30hl/ha for the white and 35hl/ha for the reds. The way that you pruned the vine was important in terms of sugar accumulation during the growing season, as it is related to the diameter of the branches. This year I worked a lot with the press in order to obtain the right texture, and I will bottle the wines next July. What I like about the vintage is the sugar levels and the acidity.”

It is interesting to see how Lamy is moving the barrel maturation from regular pièces to larger, used 600-litre demi-muids, which now represent nearly all the vessels in his barrel cellar. These have allowed Lamy’s wines to articulate their respective terroirs with ever-greater clarity, the wood taking a discreet supporting role. The quality of Lamy’s 2017s explains why so many have expanded their attention from Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet to include the slopes of Saint-Aubin. Consequently, prices have risen and it is no longer quite the bargain it used to be. However, you cannot argue with the quality and mineral intensity of the En Remilly or Derrière Chez Edouard (in both normal and high-density cuvées.) There were just a couple of cuvées that felt a little subdued on the day, but generally I cannot recommend these highly enough.

Two weeks prior to my visit chez Lamy in Saint-Aubin, I heard that Olivier had tested positive for Covid, fortunately asymptomatically. I must admit trepidation upon arriving, though he was in fine fettle and took the most precautions of any winemaker by relocating the tasting outside the barrel cellar. Tasting in freezing temperatures is not ideal and I began losing sensation in my fingers midway through the Premier Crus, but better to be safe. Lamy explained how poor flowering in spring predicated low yields around 25hl/ha, though there were exceptions to the rule such as the Saint-Aubin Les Princées that reached a respectable yield at 45hl/ha. The harvest started around 7 September with the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet picked the following day. He was particularly effusive about the texture of his 2019s and the level of phenolics that he opined are better than in 2018. To prove that, he opened five 2018s and then, in what turned into a bit of a marathon tasting, a clutch of 2017s and randomly chosen bottles back to a 2002 Puligny Tremblots. For sure, Lamy’s 2019s are an exemplary showcase of Saint-Aubin’s terroirs, his white infused with compelling salinity and drive, occasionally with subtle earthy aromas that I often find accentuated with maturity. There is always an intellectual aspect to Lamy’s wines, not crowd pleasers, yet that is what can make them so compelling.

Olivier Lamy describes 2016 as "a moderately ripe vintage," with alcohol levels no higher than the high 12s following chaptalization except for the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet (grape sugars for the crus ranged from 11% to 12.5%). As is his usual practice, Lamy started harvesting very early in 2016, on September 15. "The acidity was not obvious in November but the wines are gaining in freshness in barrel," he told me.

According to Lamy, his 2015s show slightly sweeter fruit than his 2014s but are "long and easily digestible." Although he started harvesting very early, on August 26, grape sugars were in the high 13.5% range. Most of these wines were not yet bottled at the time of my visit, but as they, too, have been gaining in freshness from their longer élevage, I have published a new set of notes on the items Lamy showed me.

Olivier Lamy describes 2016 as "a moderately ripe vintage," with alcohol levels no higher than the high 12s following chaptalization except for the Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet (grape sugars for the crus ranged from 11% to 12.5%). As is his usual practice, Lamy started harvesting very early in 2016, on September 15. "The acidity was not obvious in November but the wines are gaining in freshness in barrel," he told me.

According to Lamy, his 2015s show slightly sweeter fruit than his 2014s but are "long and easily digestible." Although he started harvesting very early, on August 26, grape sugars were in the high 13.5% range. Most of these wines were not yet bottled at the time of my visit, but as they, too, have been gaining in freshness from their longer élevage, I have published a new set of notes on the items Lamy showed me.

“The grapes were magnificent in 2015,” said Olivier Lamy. “The challenge was to find the right day to pick.” He began on August 26, bringing in his Chardonnay with potential alcohol up to 14%. Like a number of his colleagues, Lamy worked with less new oak than usual in 2015—in fact, almost none in his case—explaining that he “did not want to add caramel to a very ripe vintage.” And he now uses almost no barriques--just foudres and a few 350-liter barrels.

Although the malolactic fermentations here finished early, most of the 2015s had not been sulfited since the vinification. In a couple of instances, I was able to taste the same cuvée twice: once from a recently sulfited barrel and once from a barrel not yet touched. In both cases, the non-sulfited wine was demonstrably fresher. “Two thousand fifteen is a very good year for Chardonnay,” Lamy concluded. “The wines are better-balanced than the ‘09s, ‘05s and ‘03s.”

“A great taut, balanced vintage that benefitted from a long élevage” is the way Olivier Lamy described his 2014 white wines. He particularly likes the wines for their uprightness and austerity and believe that they will be long agers. As Lamy has bottled his wines either 18 or 24 months after the harvest since vintage 2009, I still (re)tasted some unfinished wines at the beginning of June.

Olivier Lamy, who had not yet sulfured his 2014s at the end of May, described the wines as "structured and very stable and in need of air." He will be doing a long élevage, partly because he found the wines austere at the start. "There was too much rain in August but the best-drained sites did very well," he told me, adding that the steeper vineyards produced lower crop levels than they did in 2013. "Saint-Aubin did well but it was hot during the harvest and we don't have the acidity or grip of a great classic year." In fact, Lamy told me he prefers 2013 for its citrus character and to the slower ripening process during the cooler growing season. He still had a few of his 2013s in cuve at the time of my visit.

Lamy told me he's now "working more on structure" by using more cover crop between the rows of vines. With less vigorous vines, he's getting smaller grapes with better acidity and greater flavor intensity. Lamy uses a high percentage of larger barrels and only about 10% new oak for most of his wines. He stirred the lees just three times in 2014 (in November, December and March), "just to move the lees and prevent the wines from becoming too reduced."

Olivier Lamy, who had not yet sulfured his 2014s at the end of May, described the wines as "structured and very stable and in need of air." He will be doing a long élevage, partly because he found the wines austere at the start. "There was too much rain in August but the best-drained sites did very well," he told me, adding that the steeper vineyards produced lower crop levels than they did in 2013. "Saint-Aubin did well but it was hot during the harvest and we don't have the acidity or grip of a great classic year." In fact, Lamy told me he prefers 2013 for its citrus character and to the slower ripening process during the cooler growing season. He still had a few of his 2013s in cuve at the time of my visit.

Lamy told me he's now "working more on structure" by using more cover crop between the rows of vines. With less vigorous vines, he's getting smaller grapes with better acidity and greater flavor intensity. Lamy uses a high percentage of larger barrels and only about 10% new oak for most of his wines. He stirred the lees just three times in 2014 (in November, December and March), "just to move the lees and prevent the wines from becoming too reduced."

Once again, Olivier Lamy showed me a superb range of breathtaking wines. From top to bottom, this is without question one of the leading domaines in Burgundy right now. Personally, I would be thrilled to drink any of these wines any day of the week. The only real problem is to find the wines as quantities remain very small. If only there were another 20-30 Olivier Lamys in Burgundy.....

The harvest started in August 25 and ended on September 3. Lamy notes that even though flowering was very early, the pace of ripening slowed down during the summer, especially in July and August, which brought rain and lower temperatures. As a result, the time from flowering to harvest was a classic 100 days, as opposed to a truly hot vintage like 2003, when the harvest was just 85 days after flowering. Lamy goes on to observe that acidities were in line with 2010 up until the summer rains, which had the function of lowering both sugars and acidities. All of the wines were lightly chaptalized. As always, these wines see fairly long élevage in oak, in a cold cellar than ensure slow and gradual maturation. The 2011s were mostly bottled in February and March of this year.

Olivier Lamy described the 2011 growing season as featuring more solar energy than 2010, "a cooler, more minerally year."He picked between August 25 and September 2."The fruit with potential alcohol of 12.5% was as ripe as 13.5% in other years," he noted."But if you waited to pick, you would get surmaturite."The malos were long, similar to those of the previous year, and the wines "presented better earlier, in May rather than September," owing to their strong fruit.The harvest of 2010 was no picnic either, according to Lamy."There was a lot of coulure.We picked very early, starting on September 14.The grapes were crunchy but already starting to turn, so we needed to harvest.The low yields concentrated the fruit and the acidity, and the vintage shows a strong lemony quality."Lamy told me that he used less new oak than usual for the 2010s, choosing instead to use a lot of one-year-old barrels from the big 2009 crop.

Olivier Lamy described the 2011 growing season as featuring more solar energy than 2010, "a cooler, more minerally year."He picked between August 25 and September 2."The fruit with potential alcohol of 12.5% was as ripe as 13.5% in other years," he noted."But if you waited to pick, you would get surmaturite."The malos were long, similar to those of the previous year, and the wines "presented better earlier, in May rather than September," owing to their strong fruit.The harvest of 2010 was no picnic either, according to Lamy."There was a lot of coulure.We picked very early, starting on September 14.The grapes were crunchy but already starting to turn, so we needed to harvest.The low yields concentrated the fruit and the acidity, and the vintage shows a strong lemony quality."Lamy told me that he used less new oak than usual for the 2010s, choosing instead to use a lot of one-year-old barrels from the big 2009 crop.

Lamy is one of the great, not yet widely discovered domaines in all of Burgundy. Readers should do whatever they can to check out these fabulous wines. Olivier Lamy told me he began harvesting on September 12th and had to rush to get all the fruit in by the 23rd as sugars began to mount quickly, while imminent rain was in the forecast. Yields were about 30% lower than normal. Lamy told me he found the vintage hard to read because the weather was quite volatile in the way it changed directions several times during the year. The malos here were quite drawn out. In some cases the sugars took a year to completely ferment, which meant the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations finished around the same time. I tasted this year in early July and found the Lamy cellar to be among the coldest I visited, so it is hardly a surprise to hear that the wines were slow to develop. That is also true of the 2011s, which were mostly through their malos elsewhere, but not at Lamy. From top to bottom, this is a fabulous set of wines that richly deserves a broader audience.

Olivier Lamy told me that because his cold cellar can sometimes block his wild-yeast fermentations, he's now experimenting with selected yeasts. This is giving him much drier wines, where previously some of his cuvees fermented for up to a year and finished with three or four grams of residual sugar. Lamy described 2010 as "a changeable and complicated growing season to work the vines and pick the harvest dates. The small size of the crop saved the vintage." He began picking on September 14, noting that grapes that were already close to 13% when it stormed on the 12th were more affected by the rain than fruit that was less far along. Lamy does very little lees stirring because his wines remain troubled on their own, due to the late alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. Also recommended: 2009 Chassagne-Montrachet (86).

Olivier Lamy told me that because his cold cellar can sometimes block his wild-yeast fermentations, he's now experimenting with selected yeasts. This is giving him much drier wines, where previously some of his cuvees fermented for up to a year and finished with three or four grams of residual sugar. Lamy described 2010 as "a changeable and complicated growing season to work the vines and pick the harvest dates. The small size of the crop saved the vintage." He began picking on September 14, noting that grapes that were already close to 13% when it stormed on the 12th were more affected by the rain than fruit that was less far along. Lamy does very little lees stirring because his wines remain troubled on their own, due to the late alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. Also recommended: 2009 Chassagne-Montrachet (86).

This is a fabulous set of wines from Olivier Lamy. From top to bottom, I can't think of a single wine I wouldn't be thrilled to drink. Lamy began harvesting on September 7. The 2009s spent approximately twelve months in barrel and six months in steel. I also tasted through a number of the 2010s. Some of the wines were still in malo, but those that were not, including the Clos de Meix, Derrière Chez Edouard, En Remilly and Chatenières, were all very promising. Simply put, I can't recommend these wines highly enough.

Hubert Lamy established this Saint-Aubin benchmark domain in 1970 but it has been radically transformed over the past 25 years. As recently as 1985, 80% of the production was red wine; today it's 80% white. The Lamy family owned half a hectare of chardonnay vines in 1990; now they own nine. Son Olivier took over winemaking in 1992, and today's wines are better than ever. Olivier loves "terroir years" like 2007 and 2004. He describes 2009 as "not so ripe. The wines have good structure and they're not too easy in style." His organic viticulture, which forces the vines' roots deeper, allows his fruit to maintain energy. Lamy takes about three hours to press his chardonnay, using a pneumatic press, and does virtually no debourbage. He's been working with wild yeasts for the past ten years or so, although he told me he has experimented with commercial yeasts the past couple of vintages and hasn't found much of a difference. He did no stirring of the lees in 2009. Lamy is now using a mix of barrel volumes, including a number of extra-thick demi-muids and 300-liter casks. The wines I tasted in early June were quite reduced; Lamy was planning to rack in July or September, and he typically bottles from 12 to 20 months after the vintage. Lamy considers his 2008s to be citric, classic and fresh: "balanced for me." The 2009s are rich but also balanced, he went on, "more for tasting."

Hubert Lamy established this Saint-Aubin benchmark domain in 1970 but it has been radically transformed over the past 25 years. As recently as 1985, 80% of the production was red wine; today it's 80% white. The Lamy family owned half a hectare of chardonnay vines in 1990; now they own nine. Son Olivier took over winemaking in 1992, and today's wines are better than ever. Olivier loves "terroir years" like 2007 and 2004. He describes 2009 as "not so ripe. The wines have good structure and they're not too easy in style." His organic viticulture, which forces the vines' roots deeper, allows his fruit to maintain energy. Lamy takes about three hours to press his chardonnay, using a pneumatic press, and does virtually no debourbage. He's been working with wild yeasts for the past ten years or so, although he told me he has experimented with commercial yeasts the past couple of vintages and hasn't found much of a difference. He did no stirring of the lees in 2009. Lamy is now using a mix of barrel volumes, including a number of extra-thick demi-muids and 300-liter casks. The wines I tasted in early June were quite reduced; Lamy was planning to rack in July or September, and he typically bottles from 12 to 20 months after the vintage. Lamy considers his 2008s to be citric, classic and fresh: "balanced for me." The 2009s are rich but also balanced, he went on, "more for tasting."