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Nicolas Potel Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru Aux Echanges(2003)
- Winery:
- Nicolas Potel
- Varietal:
- Region:
- France > Burgundy
- Type:
- Red Wine
- User Tags:
- red grape, fruit, pinot noir, complete, firm, perfect, buy, acidic, fat, malbec
- Burghound
- Issue 17, Jan 01, 2005
- 87/100
-
May 2008
- As was described in Issue 13, Maison Potel was acquired by the Cottin brothers who own and manage Labouré-Roi. Nicholas Potel was emphatic that this was primarily a financial transaction as both firms will retain their separate labels and marketing identities. Potel said that things were working out well and they have supported me financially and encouraged me to go after top quality. Potel describes the 2003 growing season as superior to 2002 in the sense of cleanliness. We had absolutely no problems with rot at all. In fact, I have had a vintage with no sorting work since 1999 and 1991 before read more...that. It was a very small crop, perfectly healthy and best of all it had excellent physiological ripeness. The fruit was almost perfect and except for one wine, I didn't acidify anything. We did absolutely no destemming and vinified everything with whole clusters and did lots of punching down by foot as they do in Porto. The wines ate the oak very fast and for the first time, I racked early because the malos were done quickly and moreover, the wines also ate lots of SO2. I believe that 2003 was made in advance by the sun where as 2002 was made in September and without the north wind, we would have lost everything. In 2003, it was a function of a completely different climatological cycle. In fact, the lowest sugar reading that I had was 11.9%, which is an amazing figure for someone like me who buys grapes. No, 2003 isn't as good as 1999 but I think I got more out of the materials than I did in '99. We're better equipped now than we were then and I have learned a lot since then. I used less technique in 2003 and I tried to work as naturally as possible. Technically speaking, in terms of measurable things such as acid, sugars and must weights, the two Côtes are about the same but in the mouth, I find that the Côte de Nuits has more fat and the Côte de Beaune is more tannic. Moreover, in this cellar anyway, the Côte de Beaune is more marked by the vintage. I bottled a few of the wines in August without fining or filtration and I will bottle the rest in December and January. I found the Potel wines to be all over the map in terms of quality, which is not unusual given the nature of the vintage and in fairness, no one with this kind of enormous range doesn't experience a hiccup or two. Moreover, I found many of the lower level wines to be almost as good as the 1ers, which says interesting things about what sectors did well in the vintage. As an aside, I found Potel's take on comparing the 2003 vintage to new world pinot noir interesting as he dryly observed, 2003 is not nouveau monde because the structure of the tannins is different. (Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; there are many UK sources, including Goedhuis & Co., Bibendum, Berry Brother & Rudd and The Wine Society). There is no reduction at all here with bright and elegant red pinot fruit aromas and ripe, rich and sweet flavors that are utterly delicious and this finishes with fine finishing complexity and the ample sap completely buffers the moderately firm tannins. (hide)
