2016 Meursault Village

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.”