2018 Bourgogne Rouge

It was a pleasure to return to Savigny producer Louis Chenu after a hiatus of three or four years and meet Caroline and Juliette Chenu who run the domaine. Their winery is located just up the road from Domaine Bize, literally in the shadow of the A6 autoroute. "In 2010 we started converting our 9.5-hectares of vineyard to organic and from 2012 it turned 100% organic, which was certified in 2015," Caroline told me as we settled down to taste the 2018 vintage. I asked her more about the vintage under the spotlight. "It was quite difficult choosing the date of harvest in 2018. We started the harvest on 31 August and finished around eight days later. We did not do any pigeage for the first time in 2018 because the wine was so pleasant. We were afraid to add something aggressive into the wine, so we just did remontage for all the red cuvées. The density was already there so the extraction was easy. We needed to keep the freshness as it had been a warm vintage. All the wines are around 13% natural alcohol with no chaptalization, which will be the same for 2019. The wines are generally more approachable than in 2017."