Domaine Royet Bourgogne Chardonnay 'Fut de Chene' 2019
Golden color, nose slightly vanilla oak. On the palate, the attack is soft and full, the aromas of yellow citrus fruits give way to a softness and opulence that fills the mouth and finishes long on the palate. Aging potential: 5 years
TERROIR: Fairly deep clay soil under a limestone bedrock.
SITUATION: Plot located in the town of Couches, facing south, this plot is on the way to the Couchois iron mines.
IN THE VINEYARD: This vine is plowed in the spring, the pruning is reasoned The trimming is high, more than 1m30. The vines are managed in a sustainable way. Vineyard area: 1 ha - Average age of the vines: 30 years
VINIFICATION & AGING: Yield: 55 hL / ha - Production volume: 7100 bottles
Long direct pressing, more than 2 hours while allowing controlled oxidation of the must which is then allowed to settle. Barrel fermented where the malo-lactic fermentation is allowed to happen. Aging for 10 months in oak barrels, a single cooper, medium toast. Barrels of 2 to 5 wines.
BURGUNDY 2019
There’s a popular saying here in Burgundy which points out that, since the start of the 20th century, vintages ending in ‘9’ have been exceptional. So when 2019 came around, we were secretly anticipating something special. Little did we know!
Every vintage comes with its own hyperbole: best of the decade; greatest of the century; another 1990. And it’s true, as the climate continues to warm, there has been some remarkable wine produced in recent years. But in Burgundy in 2019, it got hot.
Both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay like to come to maturity slowly. Too much heat cooks the elegance out of them. So climate change is an existential issue for Burgundy wine as we know it.
But in 2019 something remarkable happened. I hesitate to call it a paradigm shift; it may well be a one-off. But in a year where, in some places, grapes turned to raisins on the vine, Burgundy has given us a vintage worthy of the hyperbole.
You won’t find many lacey, delicate wines this year. The vintage will be unapologetically bold and unbelievably concentrated. The whites are indulgent, often explosive, and pinned to a mind-bogglingly good acidic framework, given the summer heat. The reds are sophisticated and elegant, alive.
Perhaps most tellingly, despite the hot summer, this was not one of those late-August harvests that we’re getting accustomed to. The harvest got underway in the Cote de Beaune on 12 September. And some in the Cote de Nuits did not begin picking until the 23rd. The fruit was ripe earlier, but the fine conditions allowed the growers to wait for the holy grail: phenolic maturity.
You rarely get fruit maturity (the sugar part of the equation) plus phenolic maturity (the tannins in the pips and stems) coming together at the same time. Usually you sacrifice one for the other. You can’t force it to happen. Nature bestows it upon you. But when it does happen, that, almost by definition, is a great vintage.
2019 will be a great vintage. Think 2018 with more energy. The only downside is that, as opposed to the bumper crop we saw in 2018, 2019 was a small crop. Down by as much as 60% in the southern zones where it was hottest.
Let’s look quickly at how the season developed. The winter 2018/19 was mild, with higher than average temperatures in December and February. There was a lot of rain in December which many claim could ultimately have saved the vintage from the summer’s drought.
Spring was warm and the growth cycle started earlier than usual. There were precocious zones with bud burst in early April. But cold weather set in on 5 April with frost in many areas. Frost damage would have an effect on yields, particularly in the Maconnais. The cold weather held on through mid-April with several consequential frost risks.
Warm weather returned in May and remained until early June when temperatures dropped again, slowing growth again and hindering flowering. There was a good bit of flower abortion (millerandage), which, again, took its part of the yield at harvest.
Then mid-summer was hot-hot And dry-dry. The vines, for the most part, were in good shape going into the heat wave, but the stress was excessive. Vines handled the conditions differently from one plot to the next. Consensus is that old vines, with their deep roots, were able to find water in the subsoil. And that younger, well-tended vines, had a similar advantage. Vines with roots that went looking for water near the surface, however, suffered towards the end of the season, as they scorched and shriveled.
There was just a bit of rain in August, and from then on through September was hot but fine. In certain areas Pinot Noir ripened before Chardonnay, so harvest planning was complicated. The first Cremant vineyards were picked at the very end of August, and the harvest continued through to mid-October.
Harvest was a joy for the most part. Good weather. No disease. And the fruit that survived frost and fire was beautiful. Fermentation in both white and red went off easily. Whites finished slowly, gently, giving balance and purity. The length of red fermentation varied a lot, but the tannins are fine and the wine has vigor.
BOURGOGNE BLANC
REGIONAL APPELLATION OF BURGUNDY
Generally considered the generic Burgundy wine, appellation Bourgogne, both red and white, can also be thought of as the model of what Burgundy wine should be. It is produced in almost all of the winemaking communes throughout Burgundy, and from the same grape varieties as the more specific appellations. This means that simple Bourgogne has the potential to express terroir and vintage. But because it can be produced by blending wines sourced from across the region, the quality and specificity of this appellation can be questionable. On the other hand, many Bourgogne are produced within a single commune and some even from a single vineyard. So as with all Burgundy wine, you need to know its pedigree and who made it.
The appellation Bourgogne is restricted to wines grown within the defined limits of the appellation:
Yonne 54 communes
Côte d’Or 91 communes
Saône et Loire 154 communes
Wines
Bourgogne Blanc is made from chardonnay, and the grape expresses itself differently in different parts of the region. Color is generally pale gold, ideally with good density and limpidity. Oak aging can add yellow tones, and vintage variations can shift the color spectrum. Bourgogne grown in the Yonne department and the Côte d’Auxerrois tend to share characteristics with the wines of Chablis, being earthy with a dusty, smoky minerality. In the Côte d’Or, Bourgogne whites are rare in the Côte de Nuits, but bountiful in the Côte de Beaune where they tend to be nutty and honeyed with lemony acidity. Further south in the Côte Chalonnaise and the department of the Saône et Loire you find riper, more floral wines with flinty minerality.
Terroirs
This wine is generally produced on sites at the foot of the slopes, but the nature of the soil varies according to each geographical situation. In the Côte-d'Or the soils are whitish or light grey marls and marly limestones, deep and not especially stony. The Yonne, in contrast, offers sloping calcareous sites, sometimes chalky as in the Tonnerrois district or on Kimmeridgian limestone as in Chablis and the Auxerrois, while in the Chalonnais and Mâconnais the broken landscape pushes up soils composed of limestone, clay and marl. And then in the southern Saône-et-Loire, a granitic component.
Color
White – Chardonnay
Production surface area
1 hectare (ha) = 2.4 acres
776 ha
Food
Bourgogne Blanc is among the most adaptable and food-friendly wines in the world. It pairs with traditional white wine dishes like poultry, fish and shellfish, but it is amazingly good with seeming opposites like spicy dishes and oriental seasonings. We prefer it to red wine with some of the stronger cheeses. And of course, it is the aperitif wine of choice in Burgundy.