2015 Meursault Village

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.”