2019 Bourgogne Chardonnay

I have followed Thibaut Marion since a memorable tasting of ancient Seguin-Manuel wines in 2005, a year after he bought the négociant house founded in 1824. Marion’s family had owned Chanson Père & Fils until its sale to Bollinger in 1999. Over the last fifteen or so years, Marion has carved out a niche with a mixture of Domaine bottlings and contracted fruit. Alas in 2019, the shortfall in fruit meant that some of these, bit the dust, such as the Clos Vougeot and Charmes-Chambertin. “We had a little bit of everything in 2019,” Marion told me on a quiet Sunday morning. “At each step we had some kind of risk. We could have had frost, but it was limited. When we had a heatwave, the nights remained cooler than other years. In terms of rain, we had drought but occasional showers. It was challenging. My fear, as in every hot vintage, is that we might reproduce another 2003. We had spikes of 40°C in temperature but when we started harvesting, the big surprise was to find balance and freshness. You feel the heat and ripeness, but the fruit is given lift by the balance [I suspect Marion refers to the surprising levels of acidity here.] We started the picking on 13 September and finished on 21 September, sometimes gaining a couple of degrees of alcohol in the last week during a heat wave in early September that accelerated the grape maturity to a point that nobody thought possible. But our final alcohol levels are around 13.5°. The disappointing aspect of 2019 were the yields - half the crop overall. The vinification was regular and there was no chaptalization and only minor acidification on a couple of cuvées. I used a little more whole bunches on the cuvées than usual, such as for the Bressandes, Petits Noizons and Lavières.”

I tasted the full complement of Marion’s wide portfolio. The wines focus mainly at the Village Cru and Premier Cru level with two or three Grand Crus from the length and breadth of the Côte d’Or, including the Côte Chalonnaise. The leitmotif running through these wines is the careful winemaking. I always find Marion’s wines honest and true, articulating the vagaries of the growing season for better or indeed, for worse. Tasting through his range by appellation, one can see the vineyards that performed better than others, for example, Pommard Les Petits Noizons that was yards ahead of the Petits Epenots. There were one or two cuvées that I thought could have given more, such as the Beaune Bressandes, but there are also gems like his debut Pouilly-Vinzelles Vieilles Vignes.