The health of the vines
at the heart of our wines
The health of the vines
at the heart of our wines
Our Vintages
Below, discover our account of the vintages from the estate's inception in 2014. Weather conditions are not always ideal, and we must continuously adapt to the plant and respond to its needs.
2023
A Unique Vintage
Our vineyards knew a mild winter with very low rainfall. The temperatures were above the season’s average, making us fear the spring frost if the buds were to burst early.
The rain finally arrived towards the end of March. The month of April was cool, making us forget the risks of dreaded frosts.
Spring saw a few perturbations, but the flowering occurred without problems, and the grape bunches formed beautifully.
Summer was marked by numerous episodes of rainstorms with an increase of stress regarding the sanitary state.
It was difficult to anticipate this 2023 vintage, that liked to play with our nerves: drought, heatwaves, heavily rainy weather? Like in poker, we had to know how to play our cards while making radical decisions, and yet the outcome of the grapes was impressive.
In short, we decided to start the green harvest in July and even more so in the month of August to privilege only the top quality.
This was the case until the harvest date (the 6th of September 2023), aweek ahead of our forecasts.
We are proud of the work accomplished in our vineyards and of the quality that is currently sleeping in our barrels. The juice was beautiful, with a great aromatic richness.
The wines are expressive and fruity with rich aromatic profiles, for the whites as well as the reds.
2022
A generous and promising vintage
After a mild and dry winter, a major mass of cold air dropped the temperatures during the beginning of April 2022.
Thankfully, no harm was done. Following the devastating frost of 2021, we had decided to prune later (after mid-March), to delay the bud burst of the vines.
Summer-like temperatures arrived from the middle of April and thus the vines developed rapidly.
The flowering began at the end of May, two weeks in advance compared to the average and took place under excellent conditions.
The appearance of bunches foretold a precocious and generous harvest.
Despite the beautiful weather, the lack of water started to worry us towards the beginning of June.
Finally, precipitation showed up in the form of violent storms. On the 22nd of June, in just 30 minutes, the village of Gevrey-Chambertin subdued hail, flooding, and important mud slides.
The ripening of the bunches took place in heatwave high temperatures but with conditions favoring a perfect sanitary state.
The harvests began on the 5th of September.
The wines are very colorful, supple on the palate and with beautiful concentration.
They present structure carried by soft tannins and a roundness coupled with a real density. The aromas are of gourmet red fruits.
2021
A year of challenges!
The months of January and February were marked by temperatures much higher than the seasonal average. The vines showed a resumption of activity with the appearance of buds during the last week of March.
On the night of the 5th of April, a large amount of polar air caused major frost. It reaped havoc on all of our plots. The volume of our future harvest was thus greatly impacted.
The vines, shocked by this violent episode, took some time to resume its cycle, especially since the month of May was much cooler and more humid than normal.
We had to wait until the end of June to reach warmer temperatures. As a result, the flowering occurred in good conditions, but we had already begun to see damage from the frost.
The beginning of summer was marked by cool temperatures and rainy periods. The vine grew very quickly, requiring considerable work to handle the growth as well as the pressure of impending diseases. Working in organic agriculture required vigilance at all moments in 2021.
The harvest of our exploitation began on the 22nd of September and ended on the 29th. The yields were very heterogeneous. A few vineyards gave low yields.
The winemaking was precise and required real technical skill.
All our wines are certified in organic agriculture for this vintage.
2020
A unique year
The conditions and context surrounding its production were relatively complicated. In addition, this year was historically precocious, from budburst to harvest. The result has been exceptional but the yields are very low.
When the lockdown began in mid-March, the weather was beautiful. It lasted until mid-September. The vines took advantage of this to get a 3 weeks head start at budburst.
Very early flowering raised hopes for an abundant harvest. High summer temperatures, coupled with the lack of rainfall, caused a water deficit. The maturities were occasionally staggered, as was the case with the flowering and depending on wether or not rainfall was present. Choose the harvest date is an exercice patience. We started on August 27 with our Chambolle-Musigny plots, and later September 1st for all others vineyards.
Vinification was easy, thanks to the extremely healthy condition of the grapes. There was no disease.
This vintage offers wines with unique balance There is a subtle richness, but at the same time a pleasant tension. The red wines have beautiful sustained colors, a sign of abundant anthocyanins. Many are already anticipating 2020 as a vintage that will age exceptionally well.
2019
The magic of years ending in “9”
2019 is an unusual and strongly contrasted year. It brought its share of stress and moments of tension, yet the harvest went off serenely, for an end result that sees wine professionals enthusiastic well beyond their expectations. The weather was hot and dry, but the wines show a freshness that will delight lovers of Burgundy wines, together with their seductive fullness and gourmandise. Just one snag: volumes are below an average year.
Winter was rather mild, with quite significant precipitations in December 2018 but a lot less rainfall from February onward. Based on this, vines already developed well from the month of March. But then, cold weather set in and had us worrying about springtime frosts from early to mid-April… Fortunately, there was more fear than actual damage.
The vegetative cycle took off again, thanks to the increase in temperatures, and this allowed us to start our first treatments in biodynamic 500P (horn manure), then our other plant-based treatments with a ‘decoction of horsetail’ and fermented extracts of nettle, comfrey and fern.
During May, vines continued to grow favourably and through into June, thanks to a heatwave. Unfortunately, cooler weather set in during vine flowering. The consequences of this change in weather were the phenomena of flower-shatter and less concentrated grape clusters, or millerandage.
Hot weather thereafter, even very high heat, and lack of water dominated though to harvest time, with some scattered rainfall during August. However, grape ripening continued at a good rate.
We started picking grapes on 18th September in favourable conditions. There were a lot millerands or variable-size bunches in the 2019 harvest, translating into a loss of 40-45% of total production.
Quite soft ruby in colour, the red wines of this vintage offer real elegance, with nice tannins and pleasant freshness (acidity well present). Their rich, gourmand aspect is brought by well-defined fruit. This vintage is well-balanced and shows lovely harmony.
2019 is our first vintage with Organic Agriculture certification for most of our appellations
2018
Enchanting and surprising
Winter was really beneficial to the vines, as plentiful rainfall allowed them to rebuild their water resources. These specific climatic conditions meant that bud-break lingered on until mid-April.
Meteorological conditions in May (hot weather and rain) rendered our organic agriculture adventure difficult. Our first experiments in plant-based treatments. in 2017 were continued more intensively in 2018, with preparations of horsetail (equisetum) and fermented plant extracts to ward off mildew attacks in certain parcels of vines.
In June, the weather changed tack. Hot, dry months followed one another through to harvest time (starting on 1st September in Chambolle-Musigny, then 8th September in Gevrey-Chambertin). Vines began to develop very rapidly. Vine flowering occurred rather early, followed quickly by the appearance and development of grape bunches.
The very hot summer forced vines to dig deep into their reserves and allowed them to maintain an exceptional state of healthiness.
Our red wines have quite intense colour. They are well-structured and powerful with rich, smooth tannins while keeping good fruit concentration. It is a vintage full of flavour with well-defined ripeness.
This vintage allowed us to vinify several cuvees with 100% whole bunches.
Wines from grapes in conversion to organic agriculture and biodynamic growing methods
2017
A vintage that has Burgundy enthusiastic
After a 2016 crop impacted by springtime frost, our domain and a large part of Burgundy returned to full production levels.
The 2017 campaign started early with a quite mild end to winter and start to spring.
In the spring, the vines grew rapidly thanks to favourable climatic conditions (sunshine, heat and beneficial rainfall). Because of this, vine diseases were absent and the number of organic treatments on our domain strictly limited.
By mid-June, most of our parcels had flowered. To avoid flower-shatter during this period in our more aged parcels and in those that had suffered from severe frost attack in 2016, we undertook to carry out several treatments based on fermented plant extracts.
The early nature of the vintage was confirmed, summer saw periods of heatwave or of more varied weather but ripening continued at a very good rythm.
We were to begin harvesting the earliest-ripening parcels from 11th September 2017.
For this vintage, our main attention and experiments in biodynamic growing and phyto-therapy concentrated on treatments based on manures or composts of nettle, comfrey and fern. These plants favour vine growth, stimulate natural defences, are anti-fungal and develop the flowering buds. Our other desire was to vinify one cuvee 100 per cent in whole bunches. This chance fell to our Chambolle-Musigny wine.
Grapes produced in organic agriculture
2016
Happy Ending!
The overnight frost that was rife during the night of 26th to 27th April 2016 did enormous damage throughout Burgundy:
Our domain was affected between 40 and 80%, notably in our red and white regional appellations but also our village appellations (Chambolle-Musigny and Gevrey-Chambertin).
Thereafter, spring continued with damp and rainy weather provoking incessant attacks of mildew on vines already developing late, already rendered rather fragile... and offering us no respite, neither physical nor mental.
2016 constantly reminded us that Nature would have the last word.
At the end of spring, few of us thought that is vintage would have a happy ending. Good weather settled in at the end of June and did not leave Burgundy again before the harvest. This sunny, dry weather, "out of the blue", allowed some of the delay to be recovered on those vines affected by April frosts and to improve healthy growing conditions in the vineyards. We could FINALLY catch our breath.
It was in this difficult vintage that we began our conversion to organic viticulture, with much apprehension and lots of questions about the future. Our strenght and our commitment to biodynamic growing allowed us to hold firm and continue with what we have believed in several years.
As well as our organic treatments, biodynamic with its tisanes and silica applications allowed us, albeit with unequal weapons, to fight off the strong pressure from mildew and to give ourselves hope.
Harvesting was in three parts (between 27th September and 7th October) so as to best correspond to the ripeness of each parcel.
2015
A great year for Burgundy!
From spring already, the tone for the vintage was set: it would be early. Vine flowering took place in early June, in very favourable weather. Growing season 2015 was marked by exceptional spring and summer climatology. Lovely hot weather; very hot!
The vines adapted well to the heat because they had time to get used to it, from springtime onwards. We had very little scorching of grapes, contrary to the two previous vintages.
The lack of water in July accompanied by several weeks of heat wave considerably slowed down veraison. The precipitations of the month of August allowed veraison to be finished off with serenity, leaving time and space for the grapes to ripen. Ripening was quite quick and gave to the vintage high sugar content and very satisfying levels of acidity; the latter have been well sustained. All these favourable conditions allowed us to begin the harvest in splendid sunshine on 8th September and to finish it with the first drops of rain to fall...
The extremely dry conditions had some consequences in terms of volume for certain of our parcels.
The ideal ripeness of the grapes and the levels of acidity in harmony with aromatic potential allow us to foresee a vintage with perfectly balanced wines.
Our parcel of Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru "Les Goulots" has been converted to organic and also biodynamic production.
2014
Bottling of our 2014s will be in Spring 2016.
The 2014 vintage is announced as being promising in Burgundy...It has all the ingredients of a great one!
The hot and dry climatic conditions in the spring suggested an early harvest with the hopes, as last, of a normal crop in terms of volume. However, we were very soon able to detect signs of flower shatter (non-transformation of blossom into fruit) for most of our Gevrey-Chambertin vieilles vignes.
On the 28th June 2014, the Côte de Beaune and then the Côte de Nuits were hit by a violent hailstorm, although the damage was less on the Côte de Nuits. Grapes in one of our parcels in Chambolle-Musigny were well battered. So, for this parcel we were particularly attentive right through to its harvest date.
The summer began with very hot weather and a scorching effect on all the parcels where we had done leaf-thinning, with the berries burnt by the sunlight.
Then the sunshine became more timid, giving way to cool and damp weather. The precocious vintage lost momentum.
At end August, idyllic climatic conditions returned (sunshine accompanied by a northerly breeze) and allowed optimal ripening of grapes through to harvesting.
Ripe grapes, healthy and aromatic, started to arrive at our vat-house from 17th September, in sunshine and goog humor.
The red wines show intense colour, with fruit-rich bouquets. Tannins are pleasant and silky, showing good concentration on the palate, but with great finesse.
Our Bourgogne "Chardonnay" gave us grapes of optimal maturity and, before malo-lactic, was revealing very lovely balance and a character of great precision.