2021 Chambertin Grand Cru

Jean-Louis Trapet welcomes me to the estate, though his son Louis handles tasting duties and explains the background to the 2021s. “For the whites, we lost 80% of the volume and the reds, about 65-70%. For Grand Cru, we used candles saving around 15% of volume. We are considering changing our approach. We bought a lot of candles in 2021. Now we have planted five different types of grass to help protect between rows that we hope we grow to act like a kind of blanket. It’s tricky because if the grass is at the same level as the buds at the time of frost, it will burn everything. We are also using higher stakes (180cm) and échalas in all the cuvées except Combottes which is entire with échalas. Fortunately, there was a week of sunny weather during flowering. We started the picking on 24 September and finished with the Aligoté five days later - a short harvest. We used fewer whole bunches in 2021 between zero to 60% for the Chambertin. We are increasing the percentage of demi-muids - we have 34 now.” Trapet has been on a roll in recent vintages; the wines are frankly better than ever and showing strongly in the annual blind Burgfest tasting. There is unerring purity from start to finish without short-changing in terms of flavour or complexity. Think of the recent Claude Dugat, but with slightly less transparency and a bit more structure.