2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru

Technical director/winemaker Jérôme Faure-Brac described 2016 as a “a very complicated year meteorologically, with a very rainy, humid spring, lots of mildew and the severe frost that, unusually, affected the hillsides." The harvest, he went on, was the longest he could recall, "with a good window for picking." Drouhin started harvesting Pinot Noir on the Côte de Beaune on September 24, but some of their purchased grapes on the Hautes-Côtes came in as late as October 11. Owing to the often-severe crop losses, Drouhin made a lot of tiny cuvées, often vinifying with a percentage of whole clusters to add volume to the fermenters. Faure-Brac noted that he also did a bit more “_vinification intégrale” in barrels to get more aromatic complexity and gentler extraction than in previous vintages.

Except for the Nuits Procès, Chambolle Baudes, Mazis-Chambertin and Clos Vougeot, which finished their malolactic fermentations very late, the ‘16s were bottled in December. Faure-Brac told me he likes the classic side of the vintage; he describes the wines as “very tasty and with good tension.” As a general rule, he finds a blacker fruit character and slightly higher pHs in the wines from frosted sites, while the vineyards that were mostly spared yielded redder fruit flavors. And the frosted wines are a bit less suave on the attack, he added.

Faure-Brac described 2015 as “a vintage of heat, less classic than 2016 but given energy by the use of whole clusters." Interestingly, Drouhin carried out longer post-fermentation maceration than usual (between five and eight days) in both 2016 and 2015, in 2016 because the wines were gaining in volume and complexity and in 2015 due to the serious tannins of the vintage. The ‘15s got a slightly later bottling than the ‘16s, in February and March of 2017.

According to Frédéric Drouhin, the rains of early August unblocked the vines after the very dry July, speeding up the ripening process while giving the grapes a juicier character. In the end, the fruit was thick-skinned and extremely healthy, requiring virtually no sorting. (Drouhin started picking Pinot Noir on September 3 and finished with Mazi-Chambertin on September 18.) All of the Drouhin village wines were destemmed but the premier crus were made with between 10% and 40% whole clusters. Total maceration times were longer than usual but punchdowns were “very limited, to avoid extracting more tannins," according to Frédéric. "We had to vinify the 2015s with white gloves because everything was there and we didn’t need to extract a lot,” he explained. He added that the week after the fermentations ended was “the most important period for getting a harmony of components. The post-fermentation maceration brought more depth and velvetiness. The wines were also getting drier so at some point it was time to finish.” Drouhin added that the family’s new vertical press gives them better control over the last liters of juice in the tank (the fin de presse), which they now generally declassify in order to make more precise wines. Incidentally, some of Drouhin's 2015s were in tank at the time of my December tasting but most were still in barrels.