2014 Morey-Saint-Denis Village

Romain Taupenot, now in his late 40s, returned to his family’s domain in 1998 and took over winemaking responsibilities with the 2001 vintage, adding full temperature control to his stainless steel tanks and adopting organic farming practices. This large estate in Morey-Saint-Denis owns 13. 35 hectares of vines, mostly in Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey and Chambolle, but Romain also has a small négociant operation (reviewed separately in this article). On my first visit to this estate, Taupenot compared 2014 to 1978, if without quite the same acidity. “People didn’t pay so much attention to ’78,” he noted. “Two thousand fourteen started off the same way but the wines are getting deeper and more precise and are showing more terroir character now. They don’t have a lot of acidity but they’re fresh and minerally. ”

Taupenot started harvesting on September 18 with potential alcohol levels ranging from 12% to as much as 13. 1% for the Mazoyères-Chambertin, lightly chaptalizing some cuvées to prolong the fermentation and get more complexity. Extraction of tannins was easy in 2014, he told me, and the fermentations started quickly “because there were a lot of yeasts on the grapes from three weeks of warm, sunny weather. ” In fact, it was necessary to reduce the temperature of the fruit to 8 degrees C for the first few days to get a cold soak lasting between 7 and 10 days (the wild-yeast fermentations started at about 15 degrees). Taupenot does one pigeage per day, adding CO2 to the top of the vat to maintain freshness. He uses 25% new oak for his village wines, 30% for the premier crus and 40% for the grand crus. The malos finished between March and June and the wines were racked into barrel, and sulfited, about five weeks before my visit. F1032