2019 Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru

My meeting with Nicolas Groffier came on the eve of the French lockdown at the end of my five-week trip. There was an eerie sense of foreboding when we finished the tasting, the last Groffier planned for the foreseeable future. “Well, that’s it,” he remarked as I folded away my i-Pad. I told him that I would be back once we are through the other side. In the meantime, we had the 2019s to deal with and what a splendid set of wines they are – albeit with not a single cuvée from the appellation that they call “home”. As I have written in recent reports, the stocky, tannic and rather over-extracted style that once discouraged me away from Groffier’s wines is long gone. Nicolas Groffier now produces much sleeker, silkier, refined wines that express their terroirs with far greater clarity.

“I started the harvest the 12 September and finished the 20 September,” he told me. “We picked quickly and early in the morning from 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock. The yields were good. I prefer to have a little more volume to make a classic and fresh wine than too less. There is 13.0° maximum in terms of alcohol. The malo was quite later than normal and I expect to bottle in January. It is a serious vintage that is a vin de garde.” When I pushed him to compare it to another vintage, after pausing for thought he replied: “The 2019 has the salinity and the aromas of the 2016, with a little bitterness. The 2019 vintage has a ‘lumière froide’ like in the springtime.”

Now you know the inspiration for the title of this report and yes, I did tell him that I would be stealing that apt phrase. This was another deeply impressive roster crowned by a stunningly regal Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze, a sumptuous yet intellectual Chambolles Les Amoureuses and a Bonnes-Mares that effortlessly disguises the 100% whole bunches. These wines were a joy to taste, though intuition tells me that they might close up after bottling and will warrant cellaring.