2009 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand 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.