2008 Chassagne-Montrachet Les Vergers 1er Cru

Pillot picked from September 9 through 15 in 2009, bringing in clean fruit with potential alcohol in the 13% to 13.3% range. It was quite warm through most of the period, he told me, with the temperatures only coming down after the 13th. As the grapes were rich in proteins, the fermentations were tumultuous, he added. As a result, the 2009s generally finished with more residual sugar than the 2008s. Pillot told me he does a long debourbage, but then adds a couple liters of additional lees to each barrel "as soon as the fermentation starts, to nourish the yeasts." He stopped stirring the lees after the alcoholic fermentations finished, and all the malos were complete by February, after which the wines were racked. As Pillot told me a year ago, making successful wines in 2008 really required precision in harvest dates. "Three days too early and the fruit wasn't ripe," he said. "But three days late it was overripe." The 2008s I tried at the beginning of June were standouts.

In 2008, Pillot started picking his aligote on September 24 at 12.4% potential alcohol but two days later the lab told him to harvest quickly as the grape sugars were rising too fast. By the end of the harvest, potential alcohol levels had reached 13.4%. "In 2008 we needed to wait, then pick quickly," he summarized, "while in 2007 we needed to start early but then take our time." Pillot finds more richness and gras in his young 2008s but a bit less acidity than in the wines from the previous vintage. For him, they may resemble 2006 more than 2007. Still, because the grapes were still green during the worst of the August rain, Pillot's chardonnay avoided botrytis and the wines were easy to make. Incidentally, Pillot bottled his 2007s in April of this year after leaving them in cuve since last September to stabilize. "Even in December the wines were completely hermetic, but they were transformed by March," he explained. "This is a cutting millesime du reve, built to age," he went on. "The 2008s have surprising acidity but they will still be for drinking before the 2007s."