26.01.2015

Vintage 2013

Once again, 2013 reveals what can seem evident: we have to treat the vine in line with the vintage, that is to say with a number of necessary factors to the good quality of the said vintage.

It could also be the winegrowers' gestures, his interventions as little as they may be. All these factors beneficial or not, must not distract us from the only objective: the one aiming to reach quality which characterise and distinguish the terroir.

The wines of the 2013 vintage will not escape the rule: these are wines that fit to the place where the grapes needed for their production come from.

A spring extremely cold and wet delayed the flowering and mostly spread it over more than 15 days. This spread of the flowering caused on the one hand to have each vine, each berry to express until harvest, different levels of maturity, forcing us to carry out a serious and meticulous sorting. And also creating a lot of coulure and millerandage particularly in our vines situated on the top of the hills, i.e. in most of our Aligoté vines.

Luckily, Summer (July and August), even if it hasn't enabled us to catch up with the flowering delay, was sufficiently warm and bright, to give flavour and density to the grape. The fruit ripening then slowly until harvest time, allowing a slow and progressive maturity going as far as the heart of the pips.

After this clement summer, the months of September and October, harvest periods, were wet and electric (storms), making the berries extremely susceptible to Botrytis.
This presence of Botrytis caused a significant reduction of yields and by the natural thinning that came after, completed by a sorting from our team of harvesters, it ended up being more benefiting in the end than negative.

We were able to realise once more that the work by the vine grower previously in the vine, his presence and interventions when the climatic windows allowed it, the obligation to finally apply a viticulture more and more precise, coupled with a will to practice an organic viticulture most adapted to the vintage and respecting the terroirs, allowed to harvest the grapes, not in high volume that right however in very healthy condition.

Through the wine that he vinifies and matures, the winegrower often hopes that it can exalt the beauty of a place and the quality of its terroir. With this 2013, we have the pleasure to present you wines that respond to this expectation.

These are wines of places, wines of terroir.