2023: Spring Beginnings and Vinous Inspiration

Morning sun, mountain magic

It’s been a great week at the vineyard with the team and friends. With the Chinese lunar new year 10 days earlier than in 2022, we’ve seen a similarly early start to the season, budburst coming roughly two weeks ahead as well.

I love this period of the growing season, everything is full of life, energy and hope. Each morning as I walk through the vineyard, the vines look and feel different, the incremental growth palpable, building on the previous day and the day before that. Seeing and feeling that strength of growth, channeling the health and energy of our soils, everything continues to validate the changes in our vineyard work in the past three seasons.

Alongside the work, we shared many delicious wines, all thought provoking and inspirational. Perhaps the most interesting were these wines from ascendant communes and growers tasted side by side, the ‘19 Chantereves Maranges Vignes Blanches and ‘17 Hubert Lamy Saint Aubin Frionnes (an ex-domaine late release) and a mini Jean-Marc Vincent ‘19 horizontal, comparing the two adjacent sites of Gravieres and Beaurepaire.

The Lamy needed a full five hours of air to fully unwind, but when it did it was breathtaking, singing of lemon oil, subtle flint, lemon pith, chalk dust, lemon zest. As with my favorite bottles of Lamy, this was built on purity and intense, searing structure.

Densely chalky, mineral, and taut, with a wiry, sinewy triple-helix core of intertwining acid, phenolic and dry extract structure (a sensation I associate with long elevage) which carries the subtle lemon oil viscosity beautifully. The wine doesn’t show much umami depth or layered texture in the first two hours, but exudes a great sense of purity in its lemon zest, pith and oil.

But by the end of my second glass (four hours post open) the wine begins to gain in umami and viscosity, and the sense of density from the chalky dry extract has grown notably higher.

A full five hours after opening, the Lamy gains another layer of textural and aromatic complexity - brilliant toasted sesame fragrant reduction, and a layer of nutty hazelnut oil viscosity completes the wine, adding a third dimension and immense pleasure to the base of intense purity and structure.

The Chantereves Maranges blanc spoke so clearly of the unique characteristics of the vintage - thick skins, high(er) sugar ripeness but with masses of structure all of which came together to create a beautiful balance.

Compared to the Lamy, the impact of lees was more immediately evident, with more grilled hazelnut, choux pastry, digestive biscuit umami, a greater sense of viscosity and texture from the get go.

Very pretty and pure but in a different aesthetic with masses of lemon oil, lemon scented pastry, while also very chalky and taut. The tactility of structure is subtly finer in its texture and grip, more chalk dust compared to the wiry, sinewy density of the Lamy. I’d love to compare these two again in another five years.

Jean-Marc Vincent is one of the most down to earth, hardworking, thoughtful and amongst my favorite growers of this new wave in Burgundy. I’ve been a huge fan of his whites for many vintages, but this horizontal of ‘19 reds blew me away and showed the improvement he’s made in picking, vinification and elevage, on top of the vineyard work for which he is renowned, over the past few vintages.

The Beaurepaire is noticeably more lifted from the first pour (two hours post open), singing of muddled Japanese strawberries, raspberries, nutmeg, dried and fresh damask rose, violets and rose oil. Wonderfully crystalline and pure, so charming in its high toned lift.

All of us are floored, the wine exudes so much intensity of detail without any sense of heaviness or weight. The texture of tannin is so fine, silken and is totally integrated into the flesh and core of the wine.

There is so much floral and spice drive lift, so much purity of sweet, muddled strawberries, grounded by a subtle sense of leather umami. It’s amazing that these two sites are right next to each other yet have such a drastically different personality in every sense - fruit, structure and weight.

The Gravieres spoke clearly of its lower situation on the hill with more clayey, chewy tannin, that sits parallel and quite separate from the fruit, giving an impression of denser, darker, meatier austerity. The fruit is darker too with, boysenberry, mulberry, and other deeper pitched purple fruit.

Yet an hour after first pour, the wine really grows in sweetness and breadth. The deep pitch remains, a beautiful mulberry yogurt viscosity emerges, along with masses of spice, both sweet and Asian. A darker edge of spice than the Beaurepaire which feels distinctly more lifted and floral.

My last glass of the Gravieres, four hours after opening, is beautifully giving and open, the meaty austerity has moved towards a subtle roasted black sesame umami and reduction, while the fruit has added a high toned layer of raspberry, muddled strawberry and strawberry yogurt to the darker spice, mulberry and boysenberry. Beautiful, very reminiscent of Vosne in its combination of red fruit lift, dark fruit depth and sweet, Asian tinged spice. To oversimplify, we all felt that Beaurepaire is to Gravieres as Chambolle is to Vosne.

Burgundy is remarkable for many reasons, not least for its diversity of terroir and producers and for how so many of the wines touch the soul, or as I’ve heard it put, “makes you ask if god exists.”

I loved all these wines for how delicious they were, but equally for how honestly they spoke of time, place and maker.

The realities of the market today, an ever expanding population of wine lovers and a simultaneously increasing rate of trading and speculation has put many historically significant wines in the appellation hierarchy out of reach for many.

Wines, and ultimately growers like these are why the old adage ‘producer, producer, producer’ is still so relevant. Saint Aubin, Santenay, Maranges are village names that were until recently, unfamiliar to many, but the market landscape today has pushed many a talented grower and curious drinker to these communes, and perhaps this is the silver lining of this crazy moment in wine prices.

I’ve heard it said that the appellation hierarchy in Burgundy is a ranking of the potential of terroir, not of the wines they produce. These wines were great reminder that terroir, and its reputation, is not a guarantee, that it requires the dedication and clarity of growers who work the land to fully realize its potential. If wine is made in the vineyard, then it is ultimately the grower who makes or breaks it.

William Kelley has written extensively on how these three are amongst a new wave of ambitious producers shattering old stereotypes and perceptions of what these appellations are capable of. In that way, each of these four wines were a testament to how much potential these places have in the right hands.

Sharing these wines with my team, the stories of the people, places and processes behind them, gave me great inspiration to reflect on and remove any self imposed limit of what we can achieve, to push further in the vineyard and find out what our place is capable of.

P.S.

On the topic of hope, one of the best moments of this past week was tasting a sample of our red 2022 ’洛克园 La Roche‘ for the first time with friends and the vineyard team. Understandably, I was trepidatious as I hadn’t checked the state of the wine beforehand, but I was soon relieved - more than relieved, filled with excitement.

Very lifted, pure, with an extreme sense of weightless, alpine lift and transparency that really speaks of our place.

Muddled fraises du bois (this is really distinct and something I don’t get often), rhubarb, nutmeg and rose oil rosehip. Beautifully tense and energetic acidity, but there’s no sense of austerity or being separate from the core of the wine. I’m thrilled by the sense of purity, and the beautifully fine, integrated tannins. (Elevage in glass as we didn’t have enough to fill a barrel last year)

Reverberates retronasally with great purity, lots of rhubarb and rosehip. With 15 minutes in the glass, the wine fills out slightly, gaining a sense of spherical breadth without weight.

I'm quite pleased at this first taste and I’m very excited to see how the wine will continue to grow and evolve through its elevage, and gives me extra motivation to push further, dig deeper and realize the immense potential of our incredible place.