2020 Gevrey-Chambertin Village

This year, instead of Ghislaine Barthod meticulously assembling representative samples in the barrel cellar, I tasted the wines in the comfortable warmth of their home. She guided me through her namesake range whilst her son, Clément, escorted me through those bearing her husband, Louis Boillot’s name. Clément oversees not only this gallimaufry of wines, but also nine cuvées from Beaujolais that are almost entirely from Moulin-à-Vent and sold under Domaine Louis Boillot.

“We did a lot of green harvest,” he told me. “We cut between 30% and 50% of the bunches in July depending on the vineyard so that we averaged around 40 hl/ha, a little lower in Gevrey at 35 hl/ha. Harvest began on September 9, though as usual, we picked the Volnay Les Angles earlier, on September 6. Everything is destemmed and the wines matured in 15% to 20% new oak. We have introduced more 600-liter barrels, so I had to buy some new ones [to start the barrel rotation of new and used oak]. The reds were racked 15 days earlier and the samples represent the final blend. I am surprised by the freshness and energy from such a warm vintage. The fruit is exuberant. There is just a little more ripeness in the Gevrey’s [under Louis Boillot] where the maximum alcohol is 13.8%. The Beaujolais wines underwent a 14-to-18-day cuvaison. Here, I am doing less extraction and using more vats.”

Winemaker Clément Boillot is now in charge of both his father’s, Louis Boillot, and mother’s, Ghislaine Barthod’s cuvées. That comes to some 30 different wines stretched across much of the Côte d’Or, excluding their expanding roster of Beaujolais wines. I found him in a chatty mood, and after a quick discussion about the Rugby World Cup and his efforts to replace old vines that suffer degeneration (they have half a hectare planted with the susceptible 161-49 rootstock), we broached the intake of 2022.

“We just had a bit of stress in Volnay Caillerets,” he explains as he arranges all the miniature sample bottles (previously, they were taken directly from barrel, but I prefer this more time-efficient way). In Volnay, on poor, rocky soils, the vines suffered some blockage, as we had in 2023. For the first time, we decided to rack earlier with the lower acidity levels. I will keep the same duration of aging but the first 12 months in barrel and 7 to 9 months in stainless steel vats. It also means we have fresh barrels for the new vintage. We have also introduced larger vessels: five-hectoliter barrels and foudres for the larger cuvées. We started the harvest on August 25, maybe a couple of days earlier in Beaujolais, starting around August 28 or 29 in Chambolle-Musigny. We finished September 12. The yield is 40hL/ha, but the figures are irregular between parcels. We have a smaller picker team, but picking over a longer period of time. Because of the hail at the end of June, the yields are smaller in Gevrey. Everything is de-stemmed. The 2022s were racked one or two weeks ago. All the cuvées were chaptalized by around half a degree. Average alcohol degrees were 12-12.5, and we added just under half a degree.”

Perhaps the headline from this tasting is a noticeable amelioration in the quality of those cuvées on the Louis Boillot side. Without wishing to disparage his father, there has been a little inconsistency that was perhaps exaggerated by the caliber of Ghislaine Barthod. However, in 2022, I feel that Clément Boillot’s influence is tangible with some superb cuvées: Fixin Les Herbues, Nuits Saint-Georges Les Pruliers and Pommard Les Croix Noires, to name but three. The Volnay Cailleret felt enervated by successive hail-affected seasons that must leave its vines wondering what they did to deserve this. Under Ghislaine Barthod, as expected, it is a superb set of very consistent wines, though my top score was a bit of a surprise… Not Les Fuées or Les Charmes, as good as they are, but easily the best Chambolle Les Véroilles—it is blessed with lace-like tannins and a purity of fruit unequalled across their strong range.

For the first time, instead of tasting with husband and wife “partners-in-crime”, Louis Boillot and Ghislaine Barthod, I taste with their son, Clément, who is now responsible for both Domaines. That does not mean his parents are out of the picture, but rather ensuring a smooth, operational succession. Being confronted with an annus horribilis like 2021 so early in his tenure (he opened his account in 2015), with such an array of cuvées, must have stretched him to the limit. Future vintages will seem like a breeze!

“We picked from 19 September until 2 October,” he explains, always quietly spoken at first but opens up as we go along. “It was a small yield, just one or two barrels for some cuvées. The grape maturity was low, especially Evocelles and Caillerets. The former suffered frost damage that weakened vines and made them susceptible to coulure - 80% affected. Then it hailed just before harvest. So the yield is just 5hl/ha. It was the lowest yield ever for my parents – even less than in 2016. About 2.5 hectares are under organic viticulture, which underwent 14 treatments, whereas we did nine elsewhere. Most of the cuvées came in at 11.5% to 12.0% natural alcohol, and so we chaptalized by half a degree. I did just one pigeage, the rest of the maceration, just a light remontage. They will be racked in December for an earlier bottling in January instead of April, as I don’t want to absorb too much of the oak. It’s a fragile vintage.”

Ghislaine-Barthod’s wines consistently err towards the ethereal, oft-termed “transparent” side of Burgundy, a style I appreciate. That said, I feel that this challenging season denudes some of the crus substance, weight and complexity. As a result, I occasionally wish for more “wine” in my glass, more presence. Part of the reason is the minuscule quantity that denies them the flexibility to pick and choose barrels. It is what it is, the measly volumes Nature bestowed. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the sublime Les Véroilles and particularly their Les Gruenchers. It is probably a wise move to bottle them early, as Clément Boillot mentioned, allowing consumers to enjoy them in the short- to mid-term whilst awaiting the 2019s to come around. Of course, they might surprise everyone, not least myself, in maturing longer than projected. We will see.

This year I began the husband and wife tasting (or rather husband, wife and son tasting) with Louis Boillot’s range of 2019s that span both the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits. (Boillot is married to Ghislaine Barthod and their son Clément also works at the domaines)

“We had a small harvest in Les Pruliers because of some frost and we lost 20% of the crop,” Louis Boillot explained. “We started the harvest on 9 September in Volnay and finished on 18 September. I decided to reduce the new oak across the range from around 25% to 10-15% in order to express the fruit. I find that the 2019s absorbed the new oak more than other vintages, similar to the 2016s. Everything is de-stemmed. The wines will be bottled in March or April next year.”

I probably err towards Boillot’s Côte de Nuits over Côte de Beaune thanks to an excellent showing of his Gevreys, such as the Les Cherbaudes and Les Champonnets, not to mention a lip-smackingly delicious Côte de Nuits-Villages. These wines often receive less attention than those of Ghislaine-Barthod whose enviable cluster of Chambolle Premier Crus tends to put it ahead of Boillot’s. But these are certainly worth seeking out as they are well crafted Pinot Noirs and indeed Gamays. I have included a quintet from Beaujolais that Louis Boillot makes in Moulin-à-Vent and Fleurie that come recommended.

Louis Boillot, the husband of Ghislaine Barthod, told me that he started the harvest on 25 August in Volnay, the earliest in his career. "I picked for three days over the duration of fifteen days in order to focus on parcels that were very ripe, first in Beaujolais and then returning to the Côte d’Or. Some parcels in the Côte de Beaune had to be picked three times because ripeness levels varied so much. You would analyse five consecutive vines and they would all be different! The berries were on average around 13.7% potential alcohol but the acidity was good between 3.20 and 3.30. The malic acid was very low and the malolactic fermentation was done by December. I had no problem with the vinification in terms of fermenting the sugars."

Every year, following my tasting through Ghislaine Barthod’s barrel samples, I shimmy across to the adjoining cellar that houses the wines of her husband, Louis Boillot. They make an interesting comparison: Barthod is focused entirely on Chambolle, whereas Boillot’s seven hectares of vineyard encompass both Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits, reflecting his ancestry as part of the Volnay-based Boillots. He told me that frost-affected vineyards tried to compensate with greater vigour in 2017 and so this had to be controlled. As usual, he ventured into the early-ripening Volnay Les Angles on August 28, but the picking started in earnest with a full team on September 2 (compared to September 23 in 2016.) Every cuvée is de-stemmed as usual. Boillot explained that there was a straightforward vinification whereby the fermentation temperature increased gradually, not too quickly. This year he chaptalised his cuvées by around half a degree, though it was unnecessary in 2018.

I agree with Boillot that his standout is his Nuits Saint-Georges Les Pruliers: very complex, full of joie-de-vivre and demonstrating great persistency. I also admire his Volnay Les Caillerets, one of his most consistent performers in recent years, which rather shows up the three other Volnays whose terroir cannot compare. In addition, his Gevrey-Chambertin Les Cherbaudes has an engaging spiciness, whilst his Bourgogne Rouge is certainly one of the better examples I encountered during my tastings.

Louis Boillot, who owns 5.7 hectares of vines and works another 1.3, describes 2016 as a homogeneous vintage in terms of quality--“with no big difference between the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits”--and a very ripe year. Of course, the frost was a major factor and, among his numerous Côte de Beaune cuvées, only Volnay Les Angles and Volnay Les Caillerets produced normal crops. Boillot began harvesting on September 23 (with the exception of his Volnay Les Angles, which he brought in on September 19), with grape sugars in the rather lofty 12.5% to 13.7% range. But acidity levels were higher and pHs lower than in 2015, he added. The 2016s, he summarized, "have a rare combination of ripeness, freshness and precision. The texture of their tannins is as silky as the ‘15s, and perhaps even finer.”

Boillot destemmed all of his fruit and relied entirely on remontages during fermentation, eschewing pigeages. His ‘16s spent about 18 days on their skins, including a pre-fermentation cold soak lasting 5 to 8 days. The malos finished on the early side, some before Christmas, but Boillot will not bottle his ‘16s until next March or April.

Boillot’s 2015s have delivered on their early promise. He believes that he “really triumphed” in 2015 by moving up the harvest date, adding that he took the same approach in 2017.

"We need to start harvesting early in hot years," said Louis Boillot, who began on September 2, bringing in his Volnay Les Angles at 13.5% potential alcohol; he finished on September 7 with his Fixin. All of his 2015s will be bottled with between 13% and 13.6% natural alcohol, he added. Boillot destemmed all of his fruit in 2015 and did virtually no pigeage, as the wines "did not need anything." Still, the fermentation temperatures mounted and the wines required five or six days of further time on the skins before the temperatures descended to 20 degrees C.

Boillot described 2015 as "a richer, more intense and more elegant version of 2012, with finer, sweeter tannins than 2005--more drinkable!" The malolactic fermentations finished in the spring and the wines had been racked at the beginning of September and returned to barrels. There are some stunning wines here in '15.

Louis Boillot described his 2014s as "very cherry, very red fruit wines with a chiseled character, a bit like the 2006s. They have structure, fruit and acidity." Owing to the hail on the Côte de Beaune, he picked "in several parts," beginning as early as September 11 in his Volnay Les Angles, but he noted that very little selection was needed for underripe grapes. Indeed, a few of his wines from hailed-on fruit were quite concentrated and tannic in November, and Boillot may fine a percentage of each of these cuvées to soften their tannins. He also told me he did no punchdowns at all for his wines from the Côte de Beaune. Grape sugars at harvest were around 12% and Boillot chaptalized about half a degree.

Louis Boillot compared this "cold year" to 2001. He destemmed his fruit because he feared that the stems (and seeds) were not ripe enough to vinify with whole clusters. But he also told me that the tannins in his 2013 Côte de Beaune wines were better than those of 2014.

Louis Boillot was not the only grower who told me in November that he'd wait longer to drink the better 2013 Côte de Beaune premier crus than their counterparts from the Côte de Nuits. Although the Côte de Beaune in general fared much less well than the Côte de Nuits, the best wines are atypically concentrated owing to often infinitesmal yields, and their serious tannins will also require a long time in bottle to soften. Boillot picked his Volnay Les Angles on September 28 at 12% potential alcohol, then stopped harvesting until October 2, after which he brought in the rest of his pinot parcels with potential alcohol levels between 11% and 12.1%. He chaptalized one degree "at the most" and conducted a relatively gentle vinification, punching down the cap once per day rather than the normal twice, and shortening the total cuvaison from his typical 21 days to 15 or 16. Boillot told me that the skins were green and the seeds "half ripe" in 2013 and thus he completely destemmed his fruit. But he also prefers the balance of his 2013s to his 2011s, finding the newer set of wines "more fruity and less vegetal." He added that the tannins in 2013 were better on the Côte de Beaune than those of 2014, a summer in which the violet hailstorm in late June was followed by a heat spike that burned some of the grapes.

Louis Boillot was not the only vigneron to note that the best Cote de Beaune wines in 2012 are likely to require longer aging than those from the Cote de Nuits owing to their uncanny concentration."The Cote de Nuits wines are fresh and taut," he told me, "but the Cote de Beaune wines are even deeper in 2012, even if they don't have quite the same vibrancy."Boillot compared 2012 to 2002 in its salinity but added that the '12s have better ripeness and fruit.His crop levels were down 65% on the Cote de Beaune.Despite the hail storms of 2012 and the fact that these wines had not been sulfured since the end of August following the malolactic fermentations, Boillot's 2012s stood out in November for their extraordinary purity of fruit--especially those from the Cote de Nuits.

This is a gorgeous set of wines. Like his wife, Ghislaine Barthod, Boillot likes to pick on the early side. In some vintages, the wines have felt on the edge of full phenolic ripeness, but not in 2012, where the wines have fabulous depth and a level of silkiness in the tannin that elevates them. Boillot has a number of parcels in the Côte de Beaune, where yields were tiny, and that is of course reflected in the low production of the wines. Rain during flowering and hail were significant. The vintage also claimed the 2012 Pommard, the only barrel of which ended up in the Bourgogne. I also tasted the Pommard Les Croix Noires, but it was too reduced to get a clear read on.

Boillot began harvesting early in 2011 owing to the risk of spreading rot: August 28 on the Cote de Beaune and September 2 on the Cote de Nuits. But he emphasized that the vegetative cycle was over by then and that the grapes were no longer gaining in sugar or skin ripeness. He noted that as a rule the tannins on the Cote de Nuits were much silkier in 2011, but then that's frequently the case. Potential alcohols ranged from 11% to 12% and no wine will be bottled with higher than 12.5% alcohol following light chaptalization. Boillot did a very soft vinification: one punchdown per day (his normal practice is two) for the first week, then one arrosage per day thereafter. Boillot typically ages his wines in 25% to 33% new oak, with 40% the maximum.

The 2010 vintage was not especially kind to Louis Boillot. The December 2009 frost wiped out the vineyard Boillot used for his Bourgogne, so naturally that wine was not made. The Fixin yields were tiny (just one barrel) and that wine was blended into the Côte de Nuits Villages. Overall yields were down 40-50%, although some parcels were hit even harder. The Caillerets, Croix Noires and Cherbaudes were down 50% and the Pommard was down 60%. The harvest started on September 22 and lasted about a week. The wines were aged in 25-30% new oak. Malos were very slow and were not finished until September 2011, quite late even by standards of the year. On a much more positive note, the wines themselves are fabulous and deserve serious attention. Unfortunately, the 2010 Pommard Les Croix Noires and Chambolle-Musigny Beaux Bruns were too reduced to evaluate, so I will have to wait for another opportunity to taste those wines. I will report on the 2009s in my April article.

Like his partner Ghislaine Barthod, Louis Boillot was able to make deep and fresh wines from the very warm 2009 growing season by harvesting early. But I still sensed from my tasting here this year that 2010 is more his style. "We had lots of concentration in 2010 due to the low yields," he told me, "and the wines have very good structure, with ripe tannins that are finer than those of 2009 or 2008." Due to the strong raw materials and high percentage of millerande grapes, he reduced his number of punchdowns during the fermentation from two per day to one. The resulting wines offer a compelling combination of density, sweetness and sappiness.

Louis Boillot remarked that he and his wife Ghislaine Barthod were the first to harvest in 2009, but the last in 2008. In 2009 Boillot was concerned with losing the singular expression of site, hence his decision to pick on the early side. The 2009s were made from 100% destemmed fruit, as is the custom here. New oak reached a maximum of 25-30%. Boillot is among the growers who prefers the 2008s to the 2009s, which he describes as more faithful and transparent to site.