2015 Vosne-Romanée Vigneux

“Two great vintages with opposite styles,” is how Guillaume Tardy describes 2016 and 2015. He picked most of his vineyards in 2016 in one go, with half of the fruit from the first set of buds and the other half from the contra-bourgeons. “Growers are not really capable of picking the second-generation fruit separately,” he asserted, adding that the ideal summer weather shrunk the range of ripeness between the two sets of grapes. Still, the first bunches came in with potential alcohol between 12.5% and 13%, while the second set was more like 11.5% to 12.2%. “The second grapes brought freshness and acidity, so we could have wines with fully ripe fruit character and good acid backbone,” said Tardy, adding that he chaptalized most of his ’16s by 0.5 to 0.7 percent. “On the Côte de Beaune, the first-generation grapes could be particularly high in sugar but low in acidity,” he went on. “In the end, it's a classical, elegant vintage with good body, like a blend of 2010 and 2012.” Tardy had pulled my samples several days before my visit—from one-year-old barrels except for the Echézeaux—as he had racked the wines in the interim.

Tardy destemmed all of his fruit in 2016, as usual, noting that he has never tried vendange entier. “I have one vineyard in each village, so it would be hard to sacrifice one of them to experiment with whole clusters,” he explained. He told me he did one or two more pigeages than usual—as well as a cooler, longer fermentation than normal and a few days of post-fermentation maceration—because he wanted to get more mid-palate glycerol. “Now I’m becoming a man,” he explained. My wines were previously in a more feminine style; today I’m looking for wines with more guts.”

The malos finished late, mostly in September, and Tardy noted that the wines have already become richer and softer than they appeared to be in November. He believes that the ‘16s will be approachable after two or three years in bottle but “should be fine for 10 or 12 years.” The pHs are lower than those of the ‘15s but still higher than normal for this cellar, in the range of 3.4 to 3.5. Tardy, incidentally, is happy that he started harvesting early in 2015, which allowed him to retain sound natural acidity. “It’s a big vintage with appeal to a lot of people but also a serious structure for aging,” he told me. “The fruit is very ripe and usually black. The wines were juicy at the beginning but now they’re closing down a bit, like the 2009s did at a similar stage. They will age more on their tannins, while the ‘16s will age on their acidity.” Tardy added that he prefers to drink his village wines at age seven or eight.

Guillaume Tardy told me he picked during “the first half” of the harvest, beginning on September 5, noting that some of his neighbors waited until the 12th to start, which was a more traditional 100 days after the flowering. “But my style of wine is for freshness and I was afraid of overripeness,” he told me. “It’s better to pick later if you want to eat the fruit, but earlier if you plan to make wine.” Grape sugars ranged from 12.6% to 13.2% and Tardy chaptalized about half of his wines by a modest 0.2 or 0.3. “When you're young, you want 13% or 13.5% and very ripe grapes, but now I understand that it's better to pick earlier in order to make better balanced wines."

Tardy had healthy yields in 2015—generally around 38 to 40 hectoliters per hectare—but pointed out that his vineyards are mostly situated at lower altitude, where there was less impact from the late-April frost than on the slopes. He destemmed all of his fruit and did only two or three pigeages for each wine. Following the late malos, which mostly finished in the summer, pHs are between 3.3 and 3.4 and acidity levels are quite healthy, said Tardy, who told me that “the aromas felt a little warmer than usual at the beginning but now they’re ripe and fresh and not warm, with the vintage showing a lot of black fruits and violet.” The wines were still high in CO2, which he believes is helping to preserve the freshness of the fruit. However, Tardy had degassed his samples—all taken from one-year-old barrels--and brought them out of his very cold cellar in advance of my tasting.

Tardy uses 35% new oak to age his village wines, 50% for his premier crus and 80% for his grand crus. He noted that he has actually raised his percentage of new oak in recent years but that he has reduced the level of toast in his desire to make a cleaner, more precise style of wine.