2016 Pommard Les Grands Epenots 1er Cru

Winemaker Eric Germain told me in January that he prefers his 2016 reds to his 2015s for their energy. The key to quality, he said, was the rigorous selection done here “to even up the ripeness.” At harvest time, which took place mostly between September 23 and 26 for Pinot Noir, the winery eliminated the pink grapes, then did a second pass on a table de tri, using an optical sorter. The eventual yields did not surpass 25 hectoliters per hectare. Owing partly to the heterogeneity of the raw materials, Girardin destemmed all of the fruit in 2016 and reduced the number of pigeages to just three or four per cuvée. As a general rule, these wines are now aged in one-third new, one-third once-used and one-third twice-used barrels. The wines were racked last July but Germain retained the lees. They were in cuves when I visited in January, slated to be bottled in February and March.

Germain is convinced that the 2016s have significant aging potential owing to their energy (the pHs of the ‘16s are typically between 3.45 and 3.5 while the ‘15s are more like 3.6 to 3.65). He believes that the '15s should be drunk early, and even predicts that most of the wines will be attractive in the next few years. In direct contrast to his practice in 2016, Germain worked almost entirely with whole clusters in 2015, as the grapes were of high quality, with fully ripe stems, and he believes that the whole clusters brought notes of gentian and faded rose. Still, he admitted that he wasn’t sure if he would do this again under the same conditions, especially with his wines from the Côte d’Or, noting that with too high a percentage of stems, “they can become technical wines rather than wines of terroir.” The 2015s were bottled last February and March with 13.2% or 13.3% alcohol, without chaptalization, while the grapes in 2016 were picked at about 12.7% potential alcohol and, following light chaptalization, will finish around 13%.