2015 Marsannay Boivin

The Roty family made just two Marsannays (and no Bourgogne Pressoniers) in 2016 owing to the frost damage, putting the very small quantities of grapes they harvested in Les Ouzeloy, Boivin and Clos de Jeu into their Marsannay villages. (Overall estate production was down by 50% in 2016.) The Boivin, noted winemaker Pierre-Jean Roty, is in a sheltered position and the buds escaped the frost, but the grapes were ultimately too tiny and the stems too big. But the grapes in frosted spots reached 13.8% potential alcohol while retaining good acidity, Roty added. “The seeds were brown and even the pulp was ripe,” he said. He entirely destemmed and crushed his fruit in '16.

Roty feels that the ‘16s are “full, complete, structured wines for longer aging than the 2015s, even if they will give pleasure early--a bit like the 2013s.” The grapes in 2015 were smaller, he went on, and he believes that he could have started harvesting earlier than he did (September 10). "But we can't say that 2015 is atypical," he maintained. "The wines are powerful yet delicate and harmonious, with elements of small fruits and spices and very ripe tannins. It was a year of drought more than heat, and the wines are not cooked or pruney."

If there are essentially three styles of wine in 2015 defined by the nature of their fruit—brisk red fruits, darker fruits with good energy and lift, and black fruits with a distinctly chocolatey ripeness—then Roty’s wines fit squarely into the middle group. The family picked on the late side, beginning on September 10, bringing in what Pierre-Jean Roty described as “very ripe grapes,” with potential alcohol levels of at least 12.5%. “There was almost nothing to eliminate on the sorting table, no grilled berries,” noted Roty, although he admitted that the estate’s rockier parcels were more likely to have been stressed by the drought conditions of ’15. Estate-wide production was about 36 hectoliters per hectare, as what could have been a very large crop was held down by significant millerandage and the very small size of the berries.

Vinification techniques here remain unchanged, according to Roty: an extended cold maceration, a fermentation that never exceeds 32 degrees C., and virtually no post-fermentation maceration, with the total cuvaison normally lasting about two weeks. Roty emphasized that he’s seeking to make fruity wines, adding that total sulfur after bottling, which takes place around the second spring equinox, is only about 50 parts per million. My early look at the family’s ‘15s suggests that this will be a very strong vintage here. I was reminded a bit of the estate's supernal and extremely slow-to-evolve 1985s, but the tannins in 2015 are riper and smoother in the early going, and the new vintage will offer greater early appeal even if it proves to be long-lived.