2013 Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

Like so many growers on the Côte de Beaune, Thierry Matrot has struggled with tiny production in recent years, having made 80% less wine than usual in 2012, 70% less in 2013 and 60% in 2014. "So things are looking up," he concluded. Matrot described 2014 as a year with healthy levels of tartaric acidity, with "a lemon-limey quality like 2011. It's a pretty vintage that will be easy to drink young but that has the material to age." He started harvesting on September 15, bringing in fruit with around 13% potential alcohol, and he told me he did not chaptalize any of his Meursault cuvées.

Interestingly, Matrot belives that 2014 offers a more classic expression of terroir than either 2013 or 2012. "With even lower yields in the two earlier years, and more stress on the vines, we risk losing the character of the terroir," he explained. He added that 2013 "has a certain austerity" and that it may be more necessary to age these wines than the 2014s, "which have more sucrosité."

Thierry Matrot's daughter Elsa, who will eventually succeed her father as winemaker, described the two-week-long harvest of 2013 as quite stressful, with the last grapes coming in on October 11. Grape sugars ranged from 12.2% to 13% but no chaptalization was done. Still, the average yield for the domain was 35 hectoliters, which was a lot higher than that of the previous year, which Elsa described as catastrophic. "The hail on August 1 killed Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault," she told me. The very successful 2012s here are higher in acidity and more taut than the 2013s and will need patience. Elsa describes the estate's 2012s as "minerally, like the 2010s," while the 2013s are "round, like the 2011s, but a bit fruitier." Thierry Matrot never does much stirring of the lees, but zero batonnage was carried out in 2012 owing to the hail.