2014 Pommard Les Noizons

“Two thousand fourteen is a blend of the richness and power of 2012 and the sweetness and charm of 2013,” said Nicolas Rossignol in November. “The grapes were healthy and clean,” he went on. “There was some swelling of the berries but they started very small and the skins didn't explode. ” He noted that he saw some Drosophila suzukii but that they were much less of an issue on the Côte de Beaune, where the hail may have thickened the grape skins. “It was hotter in September and October than it was in July and August,” said Rossignol. “The pHs are high but the wines have more acidity than the 2013s. The 2013s will be great for the next ten years, but the 2014s go one step further: they’re thick but elegant, with mature, even delicate tannins. For me, 2014 is one of the best vintages of the last ten years; I think the wines will retain more elegance and sweetness than the 2012s. ”

Rossignol’s wines are vastly different today than they were when I first tasted with him in Volnay in the mid-1990s. “Beginning in 2002, I cut back on extraction; I wanted to make wines like Roumier,” he told me in November. He now does a total of five or six pigeages per wine, whereas back in 2000 he punched down the cap three times a day for nearly three weeks. And he hasn’t done a pre-fermentation cold soak since 2003. “That just gives black fruits,” he explained. “Now I prefer to protect fresh red fruits. ” And he no longer raises the temperature of the wine for some final extraction at the end of the fermentation. The 2014s were in cuves by the time of my November visit.