2015 Echézeaux Grand Cru

Tasting with Etienne Grivot is always fascinating and educational, as this talented veteran winemaker is as much an artist as a scientist. “Every vintage is a new experiment,” he told me in November, as we talked about extraction and the use of punchdowns. Grivot did only one to three pigeages for each of his 2016 cuvées but reminded me that prior to 2010 he did not do punchdowns at all. He added that he has historically been more interventionist in controlling the temperature of his fermentations but that nowadays he’s a bit more liberal, even allowing the temperature to reach 34 or 35 degrees C. for a few hours.

The estate lost about one-third of its total production in 2016, but more like 40% to 60% in vineyards such as Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Charmois, Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots and Echézeaux. The flowering was very spread out, with 15% of it taking place very early but most of the rest three weeks later. “The game at harvest time was to find the judicious compromise, to get ripeness without surmaturité,” he explained. Prior to the malolactic fermentations, most of which finished during Grivot’s summer vacation, the ‘16s were dominated by cherry pit, graphite and minerals. “But as the wines began with a lot of malic acidity, they changed dramatically. Now, the ‘16s are like a compromise between the glamorous 2013s and the minerally ‘14s. It’s not a great vintage but it’s one of our best intermediate vintages: very Pinot and very transparent to terroir, and with a lot of aging potential.”

Although Grivot destemmed all of his fruit in 2016, he’s now using more and more uncrushed berries, as he "likes the advantages of vendange entier without the “inconvenience of vinifying with whole clusters. The stems bring water and potassium,” he explained. “The pHs go up and because the yeasts work more quickly the malolactic fermentations tend to start sooner. And the additional water would cost us at least half a degree in alcohol.” Grivot works with four coopers and different forests so as to avoid a specific oak signature for any of his wines.

The young 2016s, which I tasted in November, about a month before they were due to be racked into tanks and assembled for bottling next March, showed superbly. But Grivot still rates 2015 as the greatest vintage he has ever made, and the potentially longest-lived along with his 2009s. “The wines have perfect harmony, perfect acidity; everything is there,” he told me. “The top wines with good corks and a cold cellar are going to last for a very long time.” He hopes the ‘15s will remain open and approachable even in their youth, but admitted to the possibility that the wines will close up like the 2012s have. “Two thousand fifteen is more solaire while 2012 is more lunaire. The ‘15s have sweeter tannins so they may not shut down like the 2012s, which were flamboyant during their first year in bottle." Incidentally, Grivot’s wines are routinely bottled with very low levels of volatile acidity: typically between 0.3 and 0.42 ppm but more like 0.28 to 0.38 for the 2015s. “That’s why our wines start without a nose,” he said. “There are two types of aromas: the first is the early ephemeral aromas of volatile acidity, the blah-blah-blah[by which I assume he meant often described by early tasters but ultimately of limited importance], while the second is real and stable.”

“Two thousand fifteen is one of the best-balanced vintages in many years,” said Etienne Grivot in November. “The wines will be drinkable early but will have a great capacity to age. They’re very sophisticated wines: very sensual on entry, then vibrant and energetic on the end. I doubt they will ever really close down in bottle. Is 2015 classic modern or a modern classic?” he asked rhetorically, summing up.

The vegetative cycle started very early in 2015; Grivot noted that the season was “like 2011 early on, but was ultimately more like 2009.” He waited until September 10 to start harvesting and generally vinified with about 40% whole clusters, down from 70% in 2014. Most of the wines finished their malolactic fermentations very late: about one-third of them in late spring, one-third in summer and one-third during the 2016 harvest and vinification. Most of the post-malo pHs are between 3.42 and 3.47, which Grivot described as “very good for us.”

In case you had the impression that only the Côte de Beaune has suffered from severe weather events and very low crop levels in recent years, some statistics from Domaine Grivot should disabuse you of that notion. The maximum allowed yield for the estate would be 320 barrels of wine, noted Grivot. But production in the four vintages from 2010 through 2013 was in range of 150 to 170 barrels. It rose to 220 in 2014 and 240 in 2015, but declined again in 2016 (Grivot estimated 200 barrels). “Two hundred fifty barrels would be a nice quantity,” said Grivot, already thinking about 2017. Incidentally, the estate will soon be replanting 50% of its Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Boudots after using cereal grains for two years “to clean the soil.”