2007 Chassagne-Montrachet

Like a number of his colleagues, Jacques Carillon told me that the north wind in September of '08 had the effect of concentrating sugars and minerality in the grapes, the result being wines with similar acidity to 2007 but more gras. The Carillons eliminated the dry rot but kept the nobly rotten grapes, which further contributed to the impression of roundness in the wines and has accentuated their fruit. With one exception, my notes are limited to cuvees that had finished their malos as of the time of my visit.

The Carillons picked quite early in 2007, beginning on August 30, as they were afraid of getting aromas of surmaturite. The fruit came in with grape sugars between 11.9% and 12.5% and the wines were chaptalized between a half-degree and a degree, according to Jacques Carillon. He was still stirring the lees at the end of May, mostly because the malos were later than those of the 2006s. Carillon describes the '07s as rounder than the '04s, but without the earlier vintage's penetrating minerality. Thus, he goes on, it's likely to be a vintage for mid-term aging. Thanks to fairly strict green-harvesting, yields here in the family's premier cru vineyards were held to 45 to 46 hectoliters per hectare, according to Carillon. "The '06s were easy when they were in cuve, but they have tightened up following the bottling and now appear to be more classic," he told me. "In contrast, the 2005s were round and flatteur at the beginning of their lives in bottle, but are closing up now and showing a strong minerality."