2015 Clos Saint-Denis Grand Cru

Virgile Lignier was a relatively late harvester in 2015, starting on September 9 and bringing in a number of his wines after the rainy period that began on September 12. “We noticed a little dilution afterwards but gained precision,” he maintained. Grape sugars ranged from 12.3% to 13.6% and the crop level was down 15% from what Lignier described as the "normal" production of 2014. Lignier, who did very little pigeage in 2015 (none at all for some of his wines and just two or three for others), had racked his 2015s into cuves about two weeks before my November visit and planned to bottle them in February. He told me he was liking the wines more then than before the racking, when they contained more CO2. The ‘15s remind him of the 2005s in their quality of fruit. “But they’re more complete wines, better-balanced wines with riper tannins; they’ll show better early than the 2005s but should have very good aging potential."