2016 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

Pierre-Yves Colin told me that at harvest it was impossible to see the difference between first- and second-generation grapes. That made it risky to choose a compromise date for the harvest, he added, and it was also the reason why he didn’t pick too early in ’16 (he began on September 22). “I wanted to give the second-generation grapes a chance to get ripe enough,” he explained, “and thanks to the warm summer they were able to mostly catch up.” Still, grape sugars and acidity levels were lower than in 2017, and Colin chaptalized most of his wines by 0.3% or 0.4% “to extend the fermentations and get more fat.” He also believes that extending the élevage helped him "get rid of the exotic side of the vintage." Colin told me that today the 2016s remind him a bit of the 2008s, which he says are starting to come around, so he thinks that the better ‘16s need eight to ten years of cellaring.

Colin typically assembles his wines just three weeks before bottling and prefers to do a long élevage; he told me he likes "the old approach" of leaving the wines on their lees in barrel in a cold cellar for 18 to 20 months—i.e., through two winters. And he’s not a fan of racking wines into tanks for further élevage prior to bottling as he much prefers the way the wines evolve in barrels. "Stainless steel tanks don't bring any evolution to the wines; the wines don’t really continue their lives and they can take on a metallic quality," he explained. "This is probably a better option than early bottling—for example, it can give the grower more time to manage the SO2 level in a wine—but it doesn’t really add much."