2014 Chambertin Grand Cru

Christophe Perrot-Minot described 2014 as "a great millésime intermédiare,” a phrase that French winemakers often use to describe a good vintage sandwiched between two more important years. “We had a good-size crop in 2014,” he told me in November. The crop was much smaller in 2013 and those wines are more concentrated and for drinking later. But the 2014s are finer. Actually, 2014 is a lot like 2007 in that the good wines are for aging but the others need to be drunk early.” Perrot-Minot added that the ‘14s were too delicate and silky to filter. “That would have been a disaster and would have dried the wines.” Beginning with the ‘04s, Perrot-Minot is using a new bottling machine that injects nitrogen into the bottles before the wine is added. He bottled the vintage in two batches, in December of 2015 and in mid-March of 2016, and does not believe that these wines should close up, owing to their silky tannins.

Christophe Perrot-Minot described 2014 as "a great millésime intermédiare,” a phrase that French winemakers often use to describe a good vintage sandwiched between two more important years “We had a good-size crop in 2014,” he told me in November The crop was much smaller in 2013 and those wines are more concentrated and for drinking later But the 2014s are finer Actually, 2014 is a lot like 2007 in that the good wines are for aging but the others need to be drunk early” Perrot-Minot added that the ‘14s were too delicate and silky to filter “That would have been a disaster and would have dried the wines” Beginning with the ‘04s, Perrot-Minot is using a new bottling machine that injects nitrogen into the bottles before the wine is added He bottled the vintage in two batches, in December of 2015 and in mid-March of 2016, and does not believe that these wines should close up, owing to their silky tannins

Two thousand fourteen was not a year of great phenolic maturity, said Christophe Perrot-Minot, so he vinified “for dynamism and digestibility. ” He started the harvest on September 13, picking with grape sugars mostly between 12% and 12. 2%--a bit lower here than in 2013--and rarely chaptalized more than half a degree. The fruit, he told me, had less acidity--and _ less phenolic ripeness—than in 2013, and the wines are less austere. He finds them more floral, and believes that they possess a “larger aromatic spectrum. It’s _un année intermediare, to drink between 5 and 15 years after the vintage,” he summarized.

Half of the wines were still in barrel and the other half were being prepared for the bottling when I visited the estate in December; the first two wines I tasted had been racked into tanks the day before my visit. As Perrot-Minot considers the 2014s to be elegant, relatively tender wines, he felt they called for a shorter élevage than usual. He has also reduced his use of new oak to "no more than 20%." Production here ranged as high as 40 hectoliters per hectare, following what Perrot-Minot characterized as “an important vendange en vert and a serious selection at harvest. ” Incidentally, this estate includes a very high percentage of old vines; as the grapes clusters are looser, there were fewer problems with acid rot in 2014.