2016 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

Last year, Michel Coutoux described 2016 as a “bizarre vintage” with low acidity (between 3.4 and 3.8 grams per liter), and “not a classic year.” All of the estate’s parcels were affected to varying degrees by frost, with production of their village Chassagne-Montrachet cut by two-thirds but the upper portions of most of their premier crus doing better. There was practically no Chenevottes, though, and what there was of it went into the village Chassagne.

Michel Coutoux, who runs his father-in-law Michel Niellon's estate, described 2016 as a "bizarre vintage" and compared the wines to the 2009s. "We had low acidity at the harvest and the wines don't have a lot of tension," he told me. "It's not a classic year." Potential alcohol levels ranged from 11.5% to 12.7% (for the Chevalier-Montrachet) and yields varied widely, mostly depending on where the frost settled. The estate did not make a Chenevottes in 2016, nor is there a Bâtard-Montrachet, as these very old vines were pulled out after the 2015 harvest. The Bâtard parcel will lie fallow for six years before being replanted. The '16s had been sulfited about two weeks before my visit. Some had recently completed their malos but others finished as early as last December.

Coutoux told me he was very surprised by the tension shown by the finished 2015s. "They're not classic wines like the '14s and '12s but they're not extreme either. They have lowish acidity but surprising balance and energy--and not the surmaturité we were expecting." As the wines were clean in 2015, Coutoux filtered them more lightly than usual.