2012 Blanc Savigny-lès-Beaune Clos des Guettes 1er Cru

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.

Burgundy lovers who think of Jadot's red wines from the Cote d'Or as classically dry and backward in their youth may well be shocked by the 2012 vintage here.There's an extraordinary sweetness and mellowness to many of these wines that will give them great early appeal, even if they have the concentration and seamless tannins to support graceful evolution in bottle.According to winemaker Frederic Barnier, the wines typically finished with between 1.5 and 2.5 grams per liter of residual sugar, with some as high as 3.0.It wasn't that grape sugars were freakishly high; it was more a matter of the sheer density of material in 2012."We had great thick skins and no juice," said Barnier."We didn't have juice, we had jam."He added that the tannins were firm, even dry, at the beginning but that the malolactic fermentations rounded out the wines.Jadot picked 130 hectares of vines in just 11 days, beginning on September 18 with the chardonnay, as crop levels were extremely low and little sorting was needed.Potential alcohol levels were in the very healthy 12.5% to 13% range and no wines were chaptalized more than a half degree, according to Barnier. The pHs are slightly on the high side--between 3.45 and 3.6--but Barnier noted that the 2012s have slightly better acidity than the 2011s.As to where the vintage was at its best, Barnier noted that he was more impressed with the quality and density of the Cote de Beaune wines, where yields were especially low.The wines of Chambolle-Musigny and Vosne-Romanee, he added, need more time, in barrel and in bottle, and Gevrey-Chambertin fared particularly well, as there was less oidium pressure this far north.He noted that Jadot harvests earlier on the Cote de Nuits than most, in order to retain freshness.Some of the 2012s here are almost too much of a good thing, but there are many stunning examples in 2012.