2015 Puligny-Montrachet Les Referts 1er Cru

Carillon’s 2016s were barely starting their secondary fermentations at the beginning of June and thus were untasteable at the time of my visit. Carillon told me he was surprised by their natural acidity levels considering the lateness of the harvest. “The wines are less round than the 2015s but will be more minerally,” he predicted. He was afraid of the swollen berries but noted that “the concentration and the material are there.” He made 40 to 42 hectoliters per hectare in his premier crus, which he described as “almost normal yields for unfrosted spots.” I look forward to sampling these wines in their finished form next spring.

Carillon finds that the 2015s burn the mouth a bit with alcohol. The wines reminded him a bit of Condrieus just after the malolactic fermentations but he believes that they are better balanced now, noting that “I thought the 2003s would drink quickly but they're still fresh today."

"I was afraid that the 2015s would be too rich, big and heavy like the 2003s but they are turning out to be fresh wines," said Jacques Carillon, who began harvesting on September 2. He believes that cooler temperatures during the harvest (the heat broke on the night of August 31) were a strong positive factor. But he admitted that the '15s are "still atypically large." Fruit sugars were high: between 12.5% and 13% for his village parcels and between 13.2% and 13.7% for his crus. He did very little chaptalization.

Except for a couple components of the village Puligny, Carillon's 2015s finished their malolactic fermentations about two months prior to my visit, but they had not yet been sulfited. The post-malo acidity levels in 2015 are in the range of 3.7 to 4.0 grams per liter, said Carillon, vs. 4.0 to 4.5 in 2014 and an even higher 4.5 to 5.0 in 2013, a vintage that Carillon compares in its cutting character to 2008 and 2010--"like vintages before global warming." Interestingly, Carillon describes his 2014s as "a compromise between 2013 and 2015: rounder and richer than 2013 but a bit less minerally."