2015 Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Pruliers 1er Cru

The estate produced just 60% of a normal crop in 2016, as there was “a perfect storm for the frost,” according to Philippe Lécheneaut. “There was rain the night before, then the temperature got down to minus-four [degrees Centigrade] and the morning brought sharp sun and no wind.” The Lécheneaut brothers did not make their Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru, and their generic wines were also affected, even their high parcels in Morey Saint-Denis. But the north side of Nuits-Saint-Georges and Vosne-Romanée produced full crops and the estate did not have significant losses in Marsannay. As a general rule, Philippe noted, vines planted in gullies where the coldest air could settle were all frosted, no matter how they were pruned.

The frost extended the ripening cycle, said Philippe, and he and his brother Vincent eventually harvested their fruit beginning on September 27, with yields ranging widely, even within small parcels. Potential alcohol levels were between 12% and 12.5%, and the Lécheneauts chaptalized more to prolong the fermentations than to beef up their wines. The malos did not finish until the summer of 2017, and the pHs are typically between 3.4 and 3.45. Although the wines were lightly sulfited after the malos, they had not been racked at the time of my November visit.

Philippe Lécheneaut noted that he and his brother picked early in 2015 and were thus able to make comparatively fresh wines for the vintage; they also bottled a bit later than usual—in February and April of 2017—and Philippe felt that this decision helped to preserve vibrancy (as it did with many white wines from this very warm, dry year). He considers the '15s to be more complex than the more saline '16s but notes that the '16s, like the '14s, will be easier for consumers to understand. Still, Philippe believes that some 2016s will surpass their 2015 siblings in ten years.

Two thousand fifteen was the 31st vintage for brothers Vincent and Philippe Lécheneaut, and, according to Vincent, “without a doubt, the best ever for us. We had great raw material and there was nothing to eliminate. We had never seen this before.” Still, the growing season was complicated by a lack of rainfall, said Vincent. “We saw the beginning of veraison after July 14, then nothing,” he told me. “The vines were too thirsty and the physiological maturity was disrupted. But the early August rain restarted photosynthesis and the fruit ripened quickly. We started harvesting on September 7 because we feared a drop in acidity if we waited any longer.” The fruit came in with potential alcohol between 12.5% and 13%, and Vincent did “a touch of acidification.” He also vinified the 2015s with a higher percentage of whole clusters than usual—“a good 50%”—to retain freshness.

Lécheneaut emphasized that he has been working less extractively in recent years. He begins with a cold soak lasting six or seven days and did a maximum of just three punchdowns per cuvée in 2015. “We feared a lack of energy in the wines but that wasn’t the case,” he told me. The malos were long, eventually finishing in July, and the wines had not yet been racked at the time of my visit in November. Vincent showed me representative samples of each cuvée from multiple barrels. He now uses roughly one-third new oak for his top wines.