1898 Montrachet Grand Cru

As tradition dictates, I undertook a comprehensive tasting of around 100 wines from Louis Jadot at the winery in Beaune, divided into two sessions for the white and red. Readers should note that I interviewed head winemaker Frédéric Barnier.

“The wines are 0.5% higher in alcohol in 2023 than 2022, but with exactly the same level of acidity,” he adds, after I had filmed the video. “Everything from our own vineyards was around 13.5% while some fruit that we bought was over 14%. Many of the vines resisted excessive sugar accumulation. We introduced foudres so there is less oxygen whilst using the same level of SO2. The challenge was the purity of both the reds and the whites. The fermentation was not so easy for the latter, and we stopped the malolactic a little earlier. There is 0.8gm/L malic acid on 2022 and 1.1gm/L in 2023. There is 0.5% more alcohol but with the same acidity as the 2022.”

As I have done for several years, I conducted an unexpurgated tasting of Jadot, broaching comprehensive whites and reds over two-morning sessions with head winemaker Frédéric Barnier.

“The 2022 vintage was one of the warmest in Burgundy. On average, it was warmer than 1947 or 2003, so it’s in the top two or three ever. It was also one of the driest, below the average quantity of rainfall every month except one, which is key to explaining the season. That was due to three or four days of rain at the end of June. It was fundamental because, without it, the vines would have been completely stressed and blocked, probably losing a large part of the fruit. Water was really the challenge. The vines adapted to the heat, especially since it came at the beginning of the season. Between early July to around August 20, there was no rain. Zero. So, the capacity of the vines to withstand this lack of water derives from the rain in June: 80mm in the Côte de Beaune and a maximum of 150mm in the north of the Côte de Nuits. Also, it fell as two or three storms instead of one, which is important because water could penetrate the subsoil.”

“The second key moment is the change of weather at the end of August. We were worried for the young vines in terms of lack of water and saw some yellowing of leaves, and the berries became a little shriveled, which are bad signs because it means the vines are trying to survive instead of focusing [their energy] on the fruit. The forecast was for some rain, so it was a kind of bet. If there had been no water, then it would have been a problem, but some rain would restart the vines. We had around 10-20mm, which is not a lot, so it did not alter the volume but changed the ambiance, and we saw the beginning of warm days and fresh nights, which helped the vines to regain the classic ripening cycle. We could see the ripeness arriving and it moderated the level of alcohol, between 13.0% to 13.5%. The sanitary conditions were fine because of the dry conditions with just a bit of oïdium. We started the harvest for the whites at the end of August. The 2022 vintage has one of the lowest acidities, less than the previous two vintages, which is challenging for the whites, but the lower alcohol means you don’t feel it. So, I prefer it to the 2019 whites. We did not acidify, though we stopped the malolactic fermentation earlier than other vintages. In 2022, we kept 1g/L of malic acid; in 2020, it was 0.5g/L of malic acid. With regard to the reds, we are experimenting with stem addition as full clusters. I do not want to shape the wine in terms of style, so the maximum I have used is 30%.”

“The frost was clearly the worst event we have had for 40-50 years that affected all the vineyards from Chablis to Beaujolais,” head winemaker Frédéric Barnier admits in our usual two session comprehensive tasting, albeit shortened by numerous cuvées falling victim to the frost and their percentage of contracted fruit. “We did not expect the reds to be affected as well. There was little you could do to fight it. The first night, I said not to use candles…there was no point except for those growers that pruned late. Personally, I am more keen to work on agronomic solutions that might delay the bud break via rootstock and clones and so forth. You can delay by one week to ten days; that can make the difference between a 2021 and a 2022. We need to understand the risk plot-by-plot, why some are affected more than others. The vines were stressed for a long time, and it took a while to see the vineyards recover. By the end of May, it looked like the beginning of April in the vines. They were sensitive to the oïdium. It was not a cold year like 2013, but in terms of humidity, it was the necessary amount of rain, but the fact that there were constant light showers created a humid atmosphere. So, rot pressure was constant, which inhibited vine growth because they needed hot temperatures.”

“We started picking on 21 September, knowing that we would have a shorter time to pick; the last fruit was picked on 30 September, starting in the Côte de Beaune and then in the Côte de Nuits and the later parts of the Côte de Beaune. Usually, it takes a fortnight. The fruit was not perfect, so key things were the quality of pressing to adapt to small volumes and choosing the right lees, as sometimes they were not good. So during settling, it was vital to choose the lees that you want to use for the fermentation and ageing. For the reds, it was important to sort the grapes, which we had not done in recent years, to select what you want for the maceration. The fermentation was normal, but the maturation was challenging. If we buy few new barrels in 2021, then this has a knock-on for the next vintage [i.e. a lack of used wood]. Some of the whites are in large oak tanks to maintain a classic balance. For the whites, we have natural nervosité because of the higher malic acid, so we blocked some of the malolactic fermentation to capture that. I am thinking about bottling the reds at the end of the year after racking – I’m not sure what ageing will bring, whereas the whites could accept a longer élevage.”

Barnier is a winemaker that showcases a refreshing change in being unafraid to speak his mind. “It’s not: back to a classic vintage,” he contentiously says, contradicting numerous other winemakers. “Nowadays, a classic vintage is 2018, 2019 and 2020. In fact, for the reds, the pH is quite high, and acidity is quite low.”

“For me, I consider the 2020 vintage as something very special for Burgundy," Frédéric Barnier explained during our traditional two sessions to taste through Jadot’s white and reds. "It is a vintage of hope for the future because it is one of the earliest ever made, picked mostly in August, which is clearly something unusual for the region. When we started to pick from August 19, nobody expected to pick grapes with such balance. Everyone was scared about this, believing that they would pick another 2003. So that was the surprise of the vintage. We started picking the reds during the first week because the Pinot Noir was suffering a little more than the Chardonnay. Why did the wines retain balance? It was because we had a reserve of acidity in the juice due to the previous season, especially tartaric acid. The pH was very good. The vines’ ripening was slowed down by the lack of rain from the end of July until picking. The last 10-day wave of heat in August meant that we had to start picking early in order to prevent overripeness. The air was so dry that it was an easy year in terms of there being no rot to deal with. So maybe we could have more vintages like 2020 in the future. There is no greenness in the reds, and this shows that the vines can work under such conditions, though there is a limit when you can pick. The yields for the whites are better in 2020 than in 2017, around 45hl/ha (compared 10–12hl/ha for 2021) and alcohol for the white is 13.5°. We had a good level of malic acid, but it was not that high and so malolactic fermentation did not make a big difference. The 2020 is not a vintage of concentration like 2019 – it’s a more classic, perhaps more shy vintage. I don’t think the whites and reds will be so easy to drink young."

Keeping with tradition, I spent two morning sessions tasting through Louis Jadot’s whites and reds with head winemaker Frédéric Barnier. Even though there are more than 100 wines here, that figure does not represent every cuvée that Jadot produced in 2019. Why do this exercise? Well, apart from quality, you can gauge how the Côte d’Or performed as a whole and from one commune to another. You have to be mindful that some of the blending is not finished, so as Barnier pointed out, he could subsequently decide to de-select barrels of a Premier Cru into a Village Cru. Nevertheless, they are pretty good approximations. Jadot have traditionally de-stemmed all their cuvées, though Barnier mentioned that he has experimented with stems with respect to Beaune Les Cras and Santenay Maladières with different percentages in order to understand their influence depending on the vintage.

“We had a dry winter, mostly cool and January was wonderful in terms of weather,” Barnier explained as we broached the 2019s. “We did not have big reserves of water in our soils. Even bud burst was not so early with the first leaves in the beginning of April. There was a cold snap, and this led to frost, the first on 5 April. The leaves were not out, but it was humid and so the frost affected the volume more than we thought at the time. The second episode was on 14 April. It was so bright during the night because everyone was burning [straw bales]. It was cold, -2 to -3°C, but it was dry and so it was not damaging. May was better, with good temperatures so there were a few intense weeks of vegetative growth. The first weeks of June were inclement with cold and humid weather that impacted the flowering causing coulure, for example in Clos Saint-Jacques where there was a huge amount of millerandé bunches. I have never seen it so widespread for whites and reds. From mid-June to mid-September we moved to hot and dry weather, especially a canicule at end of June and end of July. But we had a few showers in August that saved the crop from becoming overripe. Water management was one of the most important factors. Véraison was early-mid July and lasted 40 days because of the lack of water and maybe this helped the quality of fruit as we had a long cycle of maturation. But during the last days just before picking, we saw an acceleration of potential alcohol in small berries with little juice, so we started picking on 11 September.

The level of alcohol is around 14.0° for the whites, which is not something we have every year, but the long process saved the freshness and acidity. The pH is classic: two to three grams of malic acid. We are used to saying one-week equals one degree of potential alcohol but in the Côte d’Or that was just three days. You had to adapt and react very quickly. The reds were easier as the cycle of the Pinot Noir was a little later than the Chardonnay and that gave us a week more. The fruit was very healthy and needed little sorting. It was a classic vinification. You just had to make sure you finished the alcoholic fermentation. You have to control it, making sure the grapes are cool when they enter the vat. Part of the malo was before Christmas, especially for the whites, with the rest over spring. We blocked part of the malo, which is important with that degree of alcohol. The whites will be bottled from next February or March. Volumes are around half of a normal crop at around 30-35hl/ha.”

One has to consider the logistical challenges facing Louis Jadot and those of similar size. How do you marshal pickers into the right vineyard at the optimal moment when you have such a scattering of vineyards and when sugar levels both expedite the picking and shorten the window in order to avoid over-ripeness? In such a comprehensive tasting as this, you can begin picking out those that were harvested at just the right time and others that maybe were not. There are too many wines to go through individually, but I will choose a few. With respect to the whites, do check out the brilliant Chevalier-Montrachet Demoiselles that surpasses the Montrachet by some margin. The strongest performing appellation was Puligny-Montrachet more than Chassagne-Montrachet and Meursault, whilst I found much to admire with Jadot’s Savigny-lès-Beaune Clos des Guettes Blanc. Among the red appellations, I am drawn mostly towards a cluster of excellent wines from Gevrey-Chambertin, especially a brilliant Les Cazetiers that dares surpass Clos Saint-Jacques. It will be interesting to compare them once in bottle. Some other appellations were inconsistent, for example, Nuits Saints-Georges that never really shone like I expected. Far better is Jadot’s range in Chambolle-Musigny, where even the single vineyard Village Cru from Drazey shows great promise. At the top end, Jadot oversaw outstanding wines from Grands-Echézeaux and Musigny.

As I have done for several years, I arranged two sessions at Louis Jadot’s headquarters in Beaune to tackle their whites and reds respectively with head winemaker Frédéric Barnier. He has done a superb job since taking over from Jacques Lardière. “For sure it was a special year," he told me as I set up my laptop in their tasting room, a regiment of samples bottles lined up and ready for inspection. "The reason is clearly, we have incredible weather for growing the vines. All the fruit in 2018 was special as we had a warm six months from April until end of October. What made the difference is that we had water at good moments, in June after flowering, a big storm in July in the Côte d’Or and some in August. The vines adapted to the conditions. Dijon had more sunlight hours than even Nice! Growing seasons like this don’t happen often. We had a lot of fruit, full yields everywhere and sometimes more, so it was a generous vintage, for example the Meursault Village picked at around 55hl/ha. We did no green harvesting for the reds and with respect to the whites, those vineyards that we did green harvest did not achieve full yield. Most of the wines are between 13.5 and 14.0 degrees and we hardly needed any chaptalization The two last weeks were a little extreme with hot weather and a warm southerly wind that could have been too much for the vintage, but this was tempered by the yield. The juice saved the vintage. All the vines affected by mildew seemed to pick fruit a little overripe because those vineyards were not able to absorb those last two weeks. We sometimes had to wait to obtain better maturation of the skins and this gave us a shorter window to pick the grapes. There was very little to sort once we began the harvest on 29 August, the reds the following week around 2 September, a fortnight's picking due to the large crop. If you left the reds past the 15 September there could be too much alcohol and richness. It was a vintage where you had to use the cooling system as it was so warm. Most of the whites are not completely through their malolactic, though the level of malic acid was quite low, around 1gm/L." We then moved on to the reds. Barnier told me: "I think the Côte de Beaune shows very well in 2018. The Côte de Nuits is very impressive. It was mostly picked in the second week and you can feel the richness. The Côte de Beaune wines are well balanced and fresh. The ageing was key: Being sure to protect the wines from bacterial infection and VA. Some of the ferments were tricky to finish, but I am confident about their ageing potential."

As usual, I sectioned off two morning sessions to tackle the white and then the red Louis Jadot 2017s, over 100 wines in total. Chief winemaker Frédéric Barnier accompanied me through the tasting, though Thibault Gagey, son of president Pierre-Henry Gagey, joined us at around “Meursault o’clock.” Readers should note that Barnier kindly recorded a video in which he offers plenty of insight into the vintage; this can be found in the Multimedia section. I will relate just the basic information that he gave me with regard to the vintage. “We started picking around September 2 or 3 with the whites. The weather was quite good but the ambiance was so dry and the vines so thirsty that they absorbed the couple of showers that came the following week. The weather during the harvest was good but not perfect, but it was not too hot. I think the quality is higher for the whites than the reds because of the yields. The harvest finished with the top Côte de Nuits. You had to wait for the phenolic ripeness of the skins, even if the alcohol is, say, 13 degrees. You had to be patient during the ageing. The reds were open and easy to taste at first, but the density is coming with the ageing. The malolactic fermentation was quite early in 2017 and 99% of the reds went through malo before Christmas since the cellars were warm.”

As is the way when broaching such a comprehensive, multi-appellation tasting, the range encompasses both highs and, thankfully, a very few “lows.” I use quotation marks because they are not poor wines. Barnier has introduced more consistency across Jadot’s huge range, though within each appellation I find one or two that stand out: Saint-Aubin La Charmois, Meursault Charmes, Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot Clos de la Chapelle and Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Garenne, to name but a few. The Grand Crus are plentiful, with their own standouts, and I will leave readers to peruse them at leisure. I have signified the exact labeling since not only is there Maison and Domaine Louis Jadot, which has implications for how it is farmed, but three or four other labels that now include the Santenay estate Domaine Prieur-Brunet, which Jadot acquired in July 2017. These are indicated in the tasting notes.

Winemaker/technical director Frédéric Barnier told me that it’s difficult to compare 2016 to another vintage of white Burgundy because the year was too variable, with dramatic differences in yields (from 5 to 50 hectoliters per hectare!) and harvest dates. The Jadot team started picking their estate Chardonnay very late, on September 26, as Barnier felt that in mid-September the skins were still green and the berries underripe. But he noted that some properties picked early due to the rain in the forecast. “We thought we needed some water to get better maturation, and because the berries were perfect and small we waited until the plants could take advantage of the rain.” These late-picked vineyards required very little chaptalization. But Barnier added that a good bit of Jadot’s Meursaults and Chassagne-Montrachets made from purchased fruit came from vines harvested a week earlier, with higher natural acidity levels, and these wines generally completed a higher percentage of their malolactic fermentations. (Jadot routinely blocks a percentage of their malolactic fermentations to maintain freshness in their white wines.) The target range for finished acidity was 4 to 4.2 grams per liter in 2016, according to Barnier.

When I asked Barnier to describe the differences he finds between frosted and non-frosted wines, he noted that the wines made from tiny yields can be a bit rustic or austere owing to their more important skin component and phenolic character, but he emphasized that the differences are more apparent in the mouth than on the nose. He also pointed out that “a lot of 2012s were very austere at the beginning but are beautiful now, even if they’re a bit reduced,” adding that “the 2016s may just need time.”

Technical director/winemaker Frédéric Barnier told me that he’s actually more confident about the 2015 white wines than the reds, which he said suffered more from heat and drought and can be tough going today. Chardonnay yields, on the other hand, were normally in the range of 45 to 50 hectoliters per hectare. The alcoholic fermentations were long owing to the richness of the juice—a sign of high dry extract, according to Barnier—and the wines did not finish quite as dry as they usually do here. But the remaining complex sugars contribute to the density of the wines, noted Barnier. “The yeasts also produced some organic acids, so we often had better acidity at the end of the fermentations, which explains the healthy pHs of the wines for a vintage like this and the feeling of acidity.”

Of course, Barnier also blocked a high percentage of the malolactic fermentations, as has often been done with Chardonnay at Jadot through the years to maintain freshness and balance. “We needed to retain acidity to balance the density of the wines," Barnier explained. "Of course the ‘15s are rich, but they’re not cooked. We get an impression of freshness without high acidity.”

Barnier is optimistic about the aging potential of the 2015 whites, most of which were bottled with alcohol levels just under 14%, without chaptalization. “They will be open young but we won’t have to wait more than three to five years even for the top wines,” he offered. “And I don’t see why they won’t remain open. But we have had ripe vintages that are great at 30 years old.”

Like a number of his colleagues on the Côte de Beaune, winemaker/technical director Frédéric Barnier lamented what he described as “the bad ambiance” in Burgundy today, owing to so many recent short crops. “The growers are angry," he told me. "They don’t want to invest in the BIVB [Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne], which would like to do more to promote the region, because they have no wine to sell. But that’s very shortsighted. What will happen in the future when we have a lot of wine to sell?” Barnier is also concerned about current pressures in Burgundy to replace old vines. “Today there’s a shortage of material in French nurseries and some people may be tempted to bring in illegal plants from Spain or elsewhere,” he said.

Jadot made between 80% and 85% of a normal crop of white wines in ’14, said Barnier, as the summer and harvest were trickier for the Pinot Noir. “In late August, after a very humid and not particularly sunny summer we thought we’d pick the Pinots first because they were farther ahead in their ripening, and the Chardonnay was still hard and green. But the change in the weather to cooler and drier helped the whites to restart and to be ready before the Pinots, which were at the end of their growing cycle. The Chardonnay was more able to benefit from the perfect weather we had during the last week of August and first half of September. So we picked Chardonnay with very good balance. The wines have great clarity and no botrytis and it should be a long-lived vintage for these wines.”

As has long been standard practice at Jadot, Barnier blocked a portion of the malolactic fermentations in 2014—in this case 50% to 55%. Interestingly, in 2015, a year in which the fruit began with less acidity, Barnier blocked 90% or more of the secondary fermentation to preserve freshness, and the post-malo ’15s will actually be bottled with higher malic acidity than the ‘14s. “But the 2014s communicate a feeling of freshness combined with very good ripeness and a certain richness,” said Barnier, who did no lees stirring and aged his wines in 25% to 35% new barrels across the board, always using the same mix of Allier, Tronçais and Nevers oak for Chardonnay. “The only variable in the wines is terroir,” he said.

Jadot harvested Chardonnay relatively early in 2013, starting on September 24 and finishing before the weekend of rain in early October, said winemaker/technical director Frédéric Barnier. Grape sugars averaged around 12% and the wines will be bottled with between 12.5% and 12.8% alcohol. The first grapes were very high in acidity, said Barnier, but by the second week of the harvest, which had some rain, "the balance was not the same" and Barnier ultimately blocked a portion of the malolactic conversions, mostly of Meursaults and Chassagnes.

Barnier noted that whereas the 2014 alcoholic fermentations went very quickly, some barrels in 2013 had a hard time finishing their sugars as the numerous vineyard treatments during the summer, in conjunction with high acidity, made for a poor environment for yeasts and bacteria.

Barnier did no settling of the must in 2013, as he wanted to give the wines "maximum possibilities and nourishment." He did some stirring of the lees between the end of the fermentations and Christmas owing to their high acidity, and to the leanness of certain cuvées. "The 2013s will take a few years to digest their acidity but they have good bones," Barnier told me. "Today they're not that friendly due to their high acidity and austerity. They will only give you an idea of what they really are in three to six years. But they have a certain density and they're not fragile: they will age for a long time. They're in the line of 2010 and 2008 for transparency, purity and freshness." He went on: "My fear was of getting vegetal flavors like in 2004 but we only have pepper and spices, not veggies." The 2013s were bottled between mid-February and the end of April.

As is my usual habit with the Jadot white wines, I focused on the most recently bottled vintage--in this case the 2012s--on my early June visit, and will wait until next year to report on the 2013s, from what winemaker Frederic Barnier described as "a surprising vintage: the wines can lack density but they have good balance and are not underripe or vegetal." He went on: "We did some batonnage to counter the acidity and any lack of richness and of course we would like our wines to take something from the lees." Barnier reported that 85% of Jadot's chardonnay was picked before the rains on October 5 and 6.As for the 2012s, which were bottled in February and March of this year, Barnier told me that the grapes had hard skins and little juice. "The richness of the '12s is absorbing the malic acidity quickly," he added, pointing out that Jadot allowed 40% to 50% of the malolactic conversions to take place. Crop levels were in the very low range of 20 to 25 hectoliters per hectare. Very few 2012 whites were chaptalized, as natural alcohol levels were generally between 12.5% and 13% (100% of the 2013s were chaptalized), and 90% of the wines were kept in the same barrels after the first pumping between February and June. Barnier does not consider this to have been a racking as the wines remained on their lees. But he's seeking to maintain freshness by cutting the percentage of new oak during the second part of the elevage.

"The surprise of the 2011 vintage was to find salty minerality and tension in the wines," said winemaker Frederic Barnier, who did not begin racking these wines until December of 2012 and bottled them between February and April of this year."The year belongs to the early-vintage family, which means it has lowish acidity, sometimes very low," he told me.He left some malic acidity in all of the wines by blocking 20% to 40% of the malolactic fermentations, noting that the wines did not have much tartaric acidity due to the August heat."The entire cycle was early in 2011:all of the white wines finished their malos by February or March."Barnier noted that potential alcohol levels in 2011 were in the low 12s, with some in the high 11s, and that the wines were chaptalized to between 12.5% and 13%.He aged all of the 2011s in around 30% new oak.Incidentally, Jadot is now using DIAM corks for all of its white wines--a new DIAM GC for its premier crus and grand crus and DIAM 10s for the rest.Given the reputation and visibility of the Jadot wines, this represents a major vote of confidence for DIAM's manufacturer, Oeneo Bouchage. Also recommended:2011 Auxey-Duresses (86), 2011 Beaune Greves Le Clos Blanc (86).

Managing transitions in leadership is one of the biggest challenges businesses face. Few have done it better than Jadot. This was my first tasting at Jadot since Jacques Lardiere's retirement (which, by the way, does not appear to have lasted too long, as Lardiere will be involved in Jadot's new Oregon project) but it felt like winemaker Frederic Barnier has been at the helm forever, even though he only arrived in early 2010. Jadot's 2011s are striking. The wines are quite tense and vibrant for the year, much of that coming from the decision to block the malos at about 30-50%. One of the things I enjoy most about tasting at Jadot is the depth of the range, as there is nowhere better to get a broad view of a vintage than at Jadot given the mind-boggling array of appellations that are bottled here. As is the case throughout the region, I found the wines of Puligny to be particularly of note. Jadot fans may also want to take a look at a vertical tasting of the Corton-Charlemagne that we posted earlier this year.

Veteran winemaker Jacques Lardiere, who will be retiring at the end of the year after vinifying one last harvest, has always marched to the beat of his own drum when it comes to winemaking, and has been a frequent contrarian on the subject of vintages. So it should not have been surprising at the end of my late spring tour when Lardiere stated that "there's very little acidity in the 2010s (!); they're all acidified." I assume that Lardiere left a good bit of malic acidity in his 2011 whites ("we don't block the malo; we disturb it by racking and adding a bit of SO2 at exactly the right time"), but as the malos and elevage are typically late and slow in this cellar, I will wait to taste these wines from bottle next year. Jadot's 2010s have turned out very well: Lardiere called them "a good surprise," noting that he did not like the wood influence in the early months and that the wines did not absorb the oak until April, when the malos were starting. He kept much more malic acidity in the 2010s than he had in the 2009s, and as of the end of May he thought that the 2010 vintage would close up less in bottle than the 2009s or 2008s. Also recommended: 2010 Santenay Clos de Maltes (86).

Once again, I tasted with Jacques Lardière and Frédéric Barnier during a marathon session that lasted several hours. Lardière has been on a whirlwind tour celebrating his last year at Jadot before his long-announced retirement, but I will believe he is stepping down when I see it. Lifers like Lardière simply don't retire. As for the wines, Jadot's 2010s are unqualified successes across the board. Of course, the wines from the most prestigious appellations are often compelling, but frankly I find just as much joy in discovering the many fabulous Burgundies from unheralded villages that are sprinkled throughout this portfolio. Lardière and Barnier first thought 2010 was better for reds than whites, but that gap has narrowed recently in their opinion. Yields were down 15-20% for the whites (less than the reds), because of the December, 2009 frost and irregular flowering the following spring. A number of wines were chaptalized approximately 0.5%. The 2010 whites were bottled between February and March 2012. I also tasted a handful of 2009s and 2008s, which I have included here as part of my goal to revisit wines from bottle on a regular basis. I continue to be thrilled by the Jadot 2009 whites, while the 2008s I tasted are mostly equally succesful. Jadot fans know that this venerable winery is composed of several brands; Maison Louis Jadot, Domaine Louis Jadot, Heritiers de Louis Jadot, Domaine Duc de Magenta and Domaine Gagey. In the interest of simplicity, I have listed all of the wines in this section under Domaine/Maison Jadot. There are two cases in which a wine is made by more than one of the labels, in which case the corresponding tasting note indicates which wine was tasted; they are the Chassagne-Montrachet premier cru Garenne and the Puligny-Montrachet premier cru Folatières.

Jacques Lardiere was concerned from the outset about the harmony of the ripening cycle in 2009. He was also afraid that the tannins and phenols of the wines would clash with the tannins and phenols from the oak barrels. The grapes, after all, had very little juice and thus a strong element of skins. Lardiere told me that his wines go into barrel with 15 to 25 liters of lees, which is one of the highest figures I've heard to date from a Burgundy winemaker.

Jacques Lardière and Frederic Barnier showed me a wide range of 2009s during my visit in late June, 2011. Many of the jewels among the 2009s are hidden in the villages level wines, which I highly encourage readers to check out. I also tasted a selection of 2008s. The 2008s are quite fat for the year. Yields were lower than in 2009. Lardière made the decision to age the wines longer on their lees to give them more richness, which he felt was lacking because of the inconsistent, high acid vintage. As a result, these are fairly big 2008s.

Jacques Lardière and Frederic Barnier showed me a wide range of 2009s during my visit in late June, 2011. Many of the jewels among the 2009s are hidden in the villages level wines, which I highly encourage readers to check out. I also tasted a selection of 2008s. The 2008s are quite fat for the year. Yields were lower than in 2009. Lardière made the decision to age the wines longer on their lees to give them more richness, which he felt was lacking because of the inconsistent, high acid vintage. As a result, these are fairly big 2008s.

This may have been the hardest set of 2008s to taste on my late spring tour owing to the fact that the wines had been bottled recently, and a number of them were showing their acidity. Interestingly, winemaker Jacques Lardiere, who normally blocks a percentage of the malolactic fermentation to retain vibrancy in his white wines, reported that nearly 100% of the malos took place. I would not have guessed this from the wines I tasted, although the appley aromas often shown by the Jadot whites in the early going were mostly absent in the 2008s. "We had hazelnut aromas in the wines from the start," he told me, "which means that the perception of the tartaric acidity is adequate." These wines spent a long time on their lees, but Lardiere is not a fan of batonnage. He agreed with me that they were in a very tight phase, and needed to integrate their acidity, but still thought that consumers could start to enjoy most of the premier crus by 2012 or 2013.

As is his habit in most vintages, winemaker Jacques Lardiere kept a bit of the malic acidity in 2006 (10% to 15%) rather than acidifying his musts. Due in part to the sheer richness of the grapes (potential alcohol levels were generally between 13.5% and 14.5%, according to Lardiere, despite the fact that Jadot picked on the early side), the alcoholic fermentations went very slowly, but in the end the wines finished with no more than 1.8 grams per liter of residual sugar. "The biggest success in 2006 is to have big white wines that don't show their alcohol thanks to good supporting minerality," noted Lardiere. Incidentally, Jadot purchased the prime 15-hectare Domaine Ferret estate in Pouilly-Fuisse earlier this year. According to Lardiere, Jadot will retain the Ferret name on the new wines it produces from these vineyards.

With a dry spring in 2005 and some rain in August, the maturation of the chardonnay started late and wasn't particularly good, said winemaker Jacques Lardiere, who waited patiently to harvest. "The pinot noir matured earlier than the chardonnay, and those who picked chardonnay early brought in fruit that was not completely ripe," he maintained. "It was a very dry vintage, and our challenge has been to figure out how we can expand the wine in barrel while maintaining its life, which is tricky since the grapes did not have a lot of acidity to begin with." As he often does, Lardiere retained 20% to 60% of the malic acidity depending on the cuvee, which he says will give the wines a crisper character in their youth.

As in the past, I focused on the newly bottled vintage of white wine at Jadot, as these wines take their time developing in this cold cellar. In fact, none of the 2003s had yet gone through their malolactic fermentations as of the beginning of J une. Nor had any of these wines yet been acidified, and winemaker Jacques Lardiere will almost certainly block a portion of the secondary fermentations, as he does virtually every year. Jadot picked late in 2003, during the first week of September. "Following the small rains at the end of August, we waited for the grapes to lose some water and reconcentrate," explained Lardiere, who compared these wines to the 1997s. Lardiere told me he considers the 2003s as interesting as the 2002s. It is worth emphasizing, if only for the uninitiated, that Lardiere does not craft wines to give early pleasure. That's not the role, or the birthright, of the greatest wines of France he maintains. The minimum time that real A. O. C. wines need to express their flavors and soil is ten years," he told me. It's a cultural right. "Incidentally, Lardiere believes that the best 2003 reds will be legendary wines; indeed, a few samples I tried at the end of my tasting indicated that they will be headspinning, liqueur-like pinots in the style of such hot years as 1959 and 1947.

Jadot believes in making Burgundies with very low levels of residual sugar. This allows for a better development of flavors in the bottle," explains winemaker Jacques Lardiere. A wine that's dry now will be more mellow later. Chardonnay in France must be dry; wines with two grams or more of residual sugar are manipulated wines that will age badly." Lardiere complained at the outset about rot in 2001, especially in vineyards that Jadot does not control and harvest; he likes these wines more today. Indeed, I was impressed by the way the grand crus in particular show an inner-mouth energy, stylishness and accuracy to the site that are rare for the vintage. Lardiere, who normally blocks a portion of the malolactic fermentations, did not use this technique more than usual in 2001 due to his initial fear of having too many unripe grapes. But it was necessary to leave some malic acidity to give grip on the back of the wine to replace the vintage's lack of natural power," he explained.Incidentally, Lardiere is not making any extravagant claims for the quality of the 2002 vintage. The wines are a bit fragile and lacking in energy, he told me. The vintage cannot be great due to the irregular growing season." I will report on these wines next year.

Winemaker Jacques Lardiere told me that the 2000s have turned out to possess a better balance of fruit and structure than he thought at the outset, and he believes that the vintage sound level of dry extract is the explanation. Like a number of his colleagues, Lardiere believes that vines in Puligny-Montrachet were particularly favored in 2000, describing these as his "strongest" wines in 2000. Grape sugars were high in 2000, so most of the crus were chaptalized only about a half-degree. Wines develop very slowly in this cold cellar, with the malolactic fermentations typically finishing very late and the bottling taking place during the second spring. (For this reason, and the fact that these wines are shipped late, I will wait until next year to report on the 2001 whites.) Lardiere routinely blocks the secondary fermentations in a portion of his barrels to preserve freshness. The techniques we use are essentially to work on the mouth, the texture, of our wines," explained Lardiere. It always on the mouth that you'll find our wine; the aromas will come with bottle aging."

Winemaker Jacques Lardiere describes the '99s as "between vegetal and ripe, with moderate sugars and moderate acidity, promising to be good agers." The wines are characterized by a faint wood sap aspect, "like the material found just under the skin of a tree," according to Lardiere. "In '99, it all about the pulp of the grape," he added. "And the '99s are denser than the 2000s." Lardiere blocked the malolactic fermentation in 10% to 20% of his barrels in '99, but pointed out that the '99s are not quite as low in acidity as the 2000s. As in recent years, due to the great number of cuvees from the Cote de Beaune, and because the 2000s will not be shipped until the fall of 2002, I focused my attention on the recently bottled '99s.

Jadot harvested its 1998 pinot noir first, then brought in chardonnay. As in '91, the house used a table de trie for all of its white grapes. ("The sorting table is the best aspect of new technology," noted winemaker Jacques Lardiere, who profits from a new state-of-the-art vinification facility just outside the town of Beaune and yet is one of the last Burgundy winemakers I'd describe as high-tech.) Lardiere used a higher percentage of new oak than usual for the '98s due to the tiny size and concentration of the crop-as much as 60% to 70% for a number of the top crus. About 80% of the malolactic fermentations were allowed to take place, and the '98s were bottled between February and April of this year. After doing extensive lees stirring with his '97 whites, Lardiere carried out no batonnage for the '98s as he was uncertain about the quality of the lees. Powdery mildew, he pointed out, has a tendency to mute the taste of chardonnay, and it can lead to unclean tannins in pinot noir. During my late June visit, I focused my attention on the finished '98s, as the '99s will not be available in the retail market for another year. Besides, noted Lardiere at the end of June, "the '99s are only now truly beginning their period of aging in barrel." But my early look at a dozen or so top examples from the later vintage made it obvious that this is a set of wines with very strong potential. "The acidity levels in '99 were no higher than in '98," Lardiere noted, yet the wines possess a sappy brightness, more citrus and floral character than the earlier year, and impressive penetration on the palate.

The chardonnay grapes ripened quickly during August of '97, says Jadot winemaker Jacques Lardiere, but then the ripening stopped temporarily during the early September rain. "Those growers who picked immediately afterwards made unbalanced wines," notes Lardiere, "while those who waited made better wines, as some of the excess water was absorbed from the berries back to the vines and normal maturation continued." Lardiere blocked an even higher percentage of the malolactic fermentation than usual in '97; he much prefers this approach to adding tartaric acidity at the bottling, which he says many producers did in an attempt to keep their '97s fresh. Lardiere carried out extensive batonnage for the '97s: twice weekly for three months beginning at the end of February. Jadot top '97 whites from the Cote de Beaune were mostly bottled late, in the late winter and early spring of '99. "We work the mouth, not the nose, of our wines," Lardiere explains. "It's ridiculous to bottle early simply as an attempt to capture fruit aromas." The best '97s here are among the standouts of the vintage, as they were in '96 as well.

This first rate producer bottled its '96 whites between March and early May of this year; the wines had been kept on their fine lees until being racked just two or three weeks prior to bottling. Considering that several had been in bottle barely a month at the time of my visit, they were shockingly expressive. Indeed, said winemaker Jacques Lardiere, the '96s have le brio de chardonnay their lively acids give vibrancy and personality to their flavors. In comparison, Lardiere adds, the Jadot '95s are sappy and concentrated but introverted wines that are very closed now but will be outstanding in five years. The best of the '96s here, as noted below, offer fabulously complex aromatics and authoritative soil tones; their richness is tempered by their sound acids and strong soil tones. A quick look at a dozen or so '97s showed a less emphatic set of wines than the '96s. Lardiere, who is often harder on his own wines than critics are, noted that the '97s are low in sugar and low in acidity "far from an ideal combination for white Burgundy."