Domaine Royet Bourgogne Cote de Couchois 'Expression' 2022
Above the town of Couches with South East exposure with clay-limestone soil. Fairly light, stony. Intense ruby color. Aromas of black fruits, cassis and blackberry. After aeration, licorice and vanilla, clean woody notes. Full fruit with spices enveloped in velvety tannins. Aging potential: 5 years
BURGUNDY 2022 VINTAGE
After three successive high-quality but low-quantity vintages, winemakers in Burgundy are refilling their cellars with an excellent 2022 harvest.This is not to say that it was an easy ride. Once again, frost, heat and drought put stress on the growing season, but timing is everything, and the extreme weather did much less damage than in previous years.
Winters have been wet and mild for years now. The winter of 2021-22 was not, with less than average rainfall and seasonal temperatures. Under these ‘normal’ conditions, we would expect budburst in the first half of April. But summer-like conditions at the end of March forced the vines, especially Chardonnay, to bud early, and we went into frost season with tender green buds exposed. There were two nights in the coming week below zero, but damage was limited.
Spring conditions set in in mid-April, but Summer followed soon thereafter, dry with spiky heat waves. The vines went wild. Winemakers fought to keep the growth under control. And the fight continued until flowering, which happened a couple of weeks early in mid-May.
The warm, dry conditions led to nearly-perfect flowering. We saw for the first time the potential of a great crop, with lots of beautiful, full, well-formed grape bunches; and an early harvest, with fruit setting well ahead of schedule.
But the drought held, and the fear was that this beautiful fruit would shrivel on the vine. Finally, at the end of June, the rain came. Summer storms bring with them the risk of hail, so all eyes were on the sky as the storms were sometimes violent causing significant but limited hail damage. The rains were intermittent, but regular for the next weeks. The cumulative rainfall would not be enough to see the crop through to harvest, however.
The heat waves continued through the rains, and so the risk of fungal disease, usually associated with wet conditions, dried up. But temperatures spiked and dry conditions set in again. The grapes ripened in a full-blown heat wave. Winemakers had to keep a close eye on sugar levels, as the risk was that ripeness could gallop away at the last minute.
And then, just about the time when it looked like an over-ripe mid-August harvest was imminent, it rained again. And the producers were able to let that water absorb into the fruit, increasing the volume of juice that was ultimately harvested in the first week of September.
2022, both white and red, are showing real depth and ripeness. And while there was once again very little malic acid, the tartaric acid holds the balance and structure together. Early tastings in the barrel show enormous charm and vitality. Very promising.
In Burgundy, the Côtes du Couchois is at a crossroads. Both literally and figuratively.
Closing the geological fault that runs from Dijon to the southwest, this islet of vines west of the Côte Chalonnaise but in the extension of the Côte d´Or should be attached to the soils of "great Burgundy". But its location in Saône-et-Loire has led the appellation to fall back to the Côte Chalonnaise.
Little known, the Couchois is therefore somewhat unloved in Burgundy. Angry at being snubbed by its neighbors, the appellation is now taking the bit in the teeth. Its time has come. In fact, at the start of the 1980s, at a time when appellations of origin were organized, the Côtes du Couchois procrastinated. Its winegrowers (around thirty at the time) could not agree on the position to adopt. Resist alone or let yourself be swallowed up by the neighboring Hautes Côtes de Beaune? In 1983, a union was finally formed, but its action, undermined by clan quarrels, produced little results. The Côtes du Couchois had to wait seventeen years to finally gain access to the precious AOC. Today, only a dozen truly concerned winegrowers are watching over the future of the appellation.
These troops have formed a new strike force. At their head: Olivier Poelaert, disembarked from his native Normandy in 2009 and since then installed at the Château de Couches. At the instigation of the group, the quality of the wines improved, a business called the Union of Producers and Traders of the AOC Côtes du Couchois was created. Together, they try to attract tourists and professionals to their end of the Côte d´Or.
On these slopes planted with Pinot Noir, Aligoté and Chardonnay (though the whites are not yet entitled to AOC Bourgogne Côtes de Couchois), the view is beautiful and the prices more than reasonable.
The vines meander along the geological fault and the folds of the valleys. This laughing landscape, just after Maranges and ten kilometers from Meursault as the crow flies, remains unexplored. Wrongly. It is time for fans to come and recharge their batteries.