2015 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru

Frédéric Mugnier made just 6 barrels of Chambolle-Musigny villages in 2016, vs. a normal 25, and his overall production was down by about 50%. He noted that most of his estate vines that are less than 30 years of age are pruned via cordon en royat while his older vines use the guyot system. “And there was a big difference between them in terms of frost damage,” he explained. “The guyot vines lost up to 90% of their production while it was more like 50% to 60% for the royat. The cordon en royat shoots are supposed to grow later, which would have help to limit frost damage to the young buds, but that didn’t happen in 2016.”

So what was the explanation for the royat vines being better able to withstand the frigid conditions on the morning of April 27, I asked. Mugnier speculated that the ¬thick arm in the royat vines retained and radiated enough heat to delay the moment when the critical temperature was reached in the young green shoots. “The difference must be minute but there is nothing between frozen and not frozen, and the smallest difference can change the outcome.” He added that he also noticed that even on the guyot vines, the shoots that were growing within three or four inches of the stakes that hold the wires usually did not freeze. Such was the tiny margin between life and death, and the impossibility of generalizing about frost damage in 2016.

Mugnier started harvesting on September 26, and in retrospect believes that he should have begun a few days earlier, as the wines are higher in alcohol than he expected—all of them between 13% and 14% without chaptalization! In my tastings, they struck me as rather 2015-like in their sometimes chocolatey ripeness. In fact, Mugnier described his’ 16s as “more opulent, round and sweet” than his ‘15s, which he finds more structured and more tannic. “If you want a wine to drink early, choose a 2016,” he said. Still, the pHs of the ‘16s are around 3.5, which Mugnier described as “surprisingly low considering that we had the highest sugar levels ever. The combination of lower-than-average pH and very high alcohol is an interesting one, and I can’t explain it.” Mugnier destems all of his fruit but avoids crushing the grapes, "so that the juice is released very slowly." He gets a slower fermentation (the wines spend almost three weeks in tank) and does not do any further maceration once the fermentation has finished.

"I try to pick when the grapes taste good," said Frédéric Mugnier in November. "The most important thing is the quality and taste of the tannins. Sugar and acidity can be adjusted, but you can't make good wines with underripe skins." As 2015 brought the lowest levels of malic acidity in Mugnier's experience (he started picking Pinot Noir on September 8 and, with potential alcohols around 13%, did not chaptalize), the effects of the malolactic fermentations "were almost invisible."

Mugnier completely destemmed his fruit, as usual, and carried out the same vinification as he does every year. "I don't adapt my winemaking to the specific vintage," he said. "In a warm, dry vintage with a lot of phenolic material, is it necessary to extract more," he explained. "And in colder years with lower levels of phenolics, should I really extract when the quality of the grapes is not as good?" He went on: "I'm certainly not a mystic but I think that grapes have a certain natural harmony. And if you try to change the inherent character of a vintage, you're more likely to lose it than to improve it."

Mugnier emphasized that he doesn't have--or want--a sorting table, for two reasons. "First, it's not very effective; sorting must be done in the vineyard. You can eliminate green clusters or leaves but anything rotten must be eliminated by the pickers or the bad berries will have contaminated the juice by the time the fruit reaches the winery. And also, I don't want a sorting table because I don't want to recreate a factory with an assembly line."

On the likely aging curve of the 2015s, Mugnier said, "I imagine that the 2015s could shut down in bottle, because it's possible that they have some tannins that could dominate. The spring of 205 was very dry and the wines suffered somewhat from drought. This may have left a trace of bitterness in the tannins. And I think the 2015s will benefit a lot from long aging."