100% Pinot Noir.
Colour: Intense, deep, black cherry-juice red.
Bouquet: Rich, concentrated aromas of red and black fruit with lovely woody and spicy notes.
Palate: Ample, rich and racy. Beautiful structure with silky tannins, fruity, woody and spicy flavours. Concentrated, powerful and well-balanced, this is a fine wine for laying down.
The perfect accompaniment to roast or oven-grilled meats, rib of beef, rump steak with pepper, marinated game or poultry in sauce, not forgetting creamy Burgundy cheeses that are not too strong.
Serve at room temperature, between 16 and 18°C. (60-64°F).
This Premier Cru can be cellared for 8 to 10 years.
The Pommard vineyards are located on the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy, between the village of Volnay to the south and the town of Beaune to the north. The Pommard appellation only produces red wines, all exclusively from Pinot Noir grapes. The vineyard covers around 300 hectares, including 125 hectares of Premiers Crus.
The ‘Les Poutures’ climat, whose name comes from ‘pastures’, covers around 4 hectares on the lower part of the vineyard, in the middle of the hillside. The soils are composed of ancient alluvium, clay-limestone, well drained thanks to a gravelly bed of rock debris. Iron oxide in the form of veins sometimes reddens the soil. Facing east and south. Altitude: between 250 and 330 m.
Hand-picked, the grapes are first sorted in the vineyard and then in the winery as soon as they arrive. They are then destemmed and crushed before being put into temperature-controlled vats. Vatting lasts 22 to 25 days. Vinification begins with cold maceration (8-10°C) for 5 to 6 days, followed by fermentation with the introduction of Burgundy yeasts, with daily pumping over and punching down of the cap. The wine is then matured in 228-litre barrels, 35% of which are new, for 12 to 15 months.
After a very mild winter, perhaps too mild, this vintage was marked by two contrasting periods. The spring was sunny and milk, with no frost, although there were some localized storms with significant episodes of hail that hit certain plots hard on the Côte de Nuits in June. Then the summer was very dry and very hot, blocking the ripening process in some areas. Harvesting was early and was exceptionally abundant. The wonderfully healthy crop promised great potential for producing highly sophisticated wines.
In Chablis, after a very dry spring and summer, we feared a harvest that would be less good than predicted, due to a lack of juice in the berries. Very high temperatures in August sent acidity right down in the grapes and brought the harvest forward to the end of August. But this early harvest of very abundant fruit allowed us to preserve some good acidity.
On the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune, the harvest began with the Côte de Beaune whites at the end of August, followed by the Pinot Noir in early September on the northern part of the Côte. With the harvest under a radiant sun and heat-wave-level temperatures, the reds offer a rare concentration of polyphenolics. Quantity and quality were the joint order of the day.
Harvesting on the Côte Chalonnaise ran from 27 August to 18 September. Very localized rain had an impact on ripening, which varied from plot to plot. The Chardonnays were harvested first to preserve the lovely acidity of this particularly sunny vintage. The Pinot Noirs with their purple juice already foretold of a rich and powerful vintage.
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