1999 Pommard Jarollieres

Nicolas Potel started his negociant business in 1997, after the Domaine de la Pousse d'Or, the domain of which his father had been winemaker and part-owner, changed hands. At the outset, about half of what he purchased was in juice. But with the 2000 harvest, fully 80% will be grapes, giving him the ability to do more of the vinification himself. "In the two years before my father died, we were always having arguments because I would run off to tastings all the time," Potel told me. "In '95 and '96 I must have gone to 150 tastings each year, and they weren't short ones." But following this experience, Potel knew just where to go for good material. Potel gave the fruit a three-to-five-day cold soak in '99-"not longer, because the musts were already dark." He did four pigeages per day, rather than a normal two, because the extra punching down of the cap, he says, was needed to extract the good tannins from hard-skinned grapes. And thanks to the clean fruit of '99, "we could work with the grapes without getting bad stuff." The '99s started big and tannic, said Potel, who planned to rack his wines (for the first time) into tank in December and begin bottling in January. "I don't acidify so I don't even want to know what the pH is, because I don't want to be afraid." My tasting notes suggest that Potel '99s were made in higher-quality barrels than the '98s, some of which showed degrees of dullness or dryness, or perhaps it's just the sweetening influence of a higher percentage of new oak. Potel told me that when he buys wine from a new source, he generally begins by doing its levage in older barrels until he "understands the fruit."