2018 Echézeaux Grand Cru

It was a pleasure to return to Domaine Fourrier after inadvertently missing it off my itinerary one year and misreading it as Domaine Fournier in Marsannay another and turning up at the right place but on the wrong day. Jean-Marie Fourrier joined us midway through the tasting of both domaine and négociant 2018s. “We decided to slow down the vegetative cycle by pruning in June," he told me. "We wanted to keep a large foliage to protect the berries against the sun. It was crucial to keep the leaves and not to do too much rognage (hedging). We managed to achieve good balance by choosing the best period of the harvest, from 7 September and picked over six days. We had gone into the vineyard at the end of August and we thought it was too early. At that point, it was 85-86 days after flowering and it should be 100 days - you cannot have green pips when you pick. Everything was ripe by early September. We harvested in the morning and hired twice as many pickers than usual, up to 60 people working from 6 to 12 o’clock as we wanted a cool maceration, as usual de-stemming all the crus. The new oak used in 2018 is 20% for the Griottes, 15% for the Premier Crus and 10% for the Village Crus. The racking was done in October and the wines are now in stainless steel vat and they will be bottled in February. The alcohol is between 13.2% to 13.5%." Even though 7 September is an early date compared to recent growing seasons, it is a few days later than others that opted to pick from the end of August. I did feel here that one or two crus were marked by a little over-ripeness, but generally these are, as ever, meticulously crafted expressions of their respective sites that often have a lushness, a corpulence that you would not find in say, Duroché, Rousseau or recent vintages of Dugat.