2016 Meursault Luchets

As has been his habit in recent years, Jean-Marc Roulot was reluctant to show his new vintage in late spring, as he believes that even wines that have finished their malolactic fermentations at this point cannot yet be accurately assessed. So I focused on the 2016s at this estate, tasting the wines with Roulot’s assistant Eric Baudin, who has been here since 2000. Baudin told me that the harvest was down 65% in 2016 owing to the frost and subsequent cold weather in May, followed by “a lot of maladies and mildew in the vines,” adding that the estate carried out 13 vineyard treatments. “July saved us and allowed the fruit to achieve good maturity,” he said. Roulot began harvesting on September 13, earlier than most of his neighbors in Meursault.

Baudin described the resulting wines as “savory and easy to drink, classic but not great.” He went on: “We always think of a complicated vintage in a negative way, but the grape maturity was between 12.5% and 13% and very little chaptalization was necessary. Although the wines closed up after the bottling [which took place between January and April of this year], they should be drinkable fairly early.” He noted that acidity levels are in the 3.6 to 4.0 grams-per-liter range, while the ‘17s will be bottled at 4.0 to 4.5.