The SOMM Journal

October / November 2016

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{ SOMMjournal.com }  75 In the Right Place at the Right Time Here in Chorey-lès-Beaune the two Pascal and Marie-France agree that a good deal of work is needed to get the best from the vineyard. For one thing the landscape is about as flat as it comes. In the near distance you can see the rolling, often sun-kissed hillsides, but here in the heart of Chorey-lès-Beaune there's hardly more than a mole hill. The highest point is in a plot called Les Beaumonts, but you'd be hard-put to see any slope at all. The soil is limestone-marl alluvium, ferruginous in places, over stony subsoil, formed by millennia of up-slope erosion. Towards Aloxe-Corton are beds of alluvial gravels, rich in calcium-rich rocks called chailles, and towards Savigny-lès-Beaune beds of clay with pebbly limestone. The harvest is a crucial time of year in Chorey, as it is everywhere, and there's a healthy debate about the merits of manual versus machine harvesting, with Marie-France opting for mechanical and the two Pascals preferring to stick with manual harvesting. The com - mon ground however is that all three employ not one but two, or even three, sorting processes to ensure that only the ripest grapes without any suggestion of rot actually make it into the winery. Herein lies another advantage of having vines in several different locations: it can be a huge help in mitigating the vagaries of the weather, and a look back at the past few years illustrates just how vital this can be. Every year since 2009, they have been struggling to harvest any - thing close to the 50 hectolitres' worth of grapes that are allowed by the appellation rules, and 2016 looks as though it will be no bet- ter. Severe frost on the night of 26–27 April looks to have wiped out a great deal of the future harvest. These small harvests put a strain on the sales cycle, because when one vintage is exhausted you have to start selling the next, even though ideally it would be better to allow it a few more months of aging. On the bright side, the current trend among wine consumers seems to be for the younger, more contemporary and fruity style that typifies Chorey-lès-Beaune these days. It seems that Chorey is in the right place at the right time. The reds wines are typically aged in oak for about 15 months and bottled in the second spring after the harvest, then released onto the market towards the end of that year, which means that most vignerons are currently still selling the 2013 and will be switching to the 2014 vintage later this year or perhaps early in 2017. Undeniably Attractive All three of our vignerons agree that the wines their parents made were heavier on tannin and really needed to be kept for a few years to drink at their best, but nowadays the wines are more immediately likeable. There's a certain energy to them, coupled with a soft texture and plenty of fruit on the attack; the use of wood is carefully managed, with new barrels accounting for only 10–20 percent of the total and the toasting of the barrels carefully chosen so as not to impart too much tannin to the wine. The overall impression is of finesse and balance—or, as Marie-France would put it, "a more feminine style." The result is wines that offer excellent drinking after just three years but which can last five or even ten years. The vintages that you are likely to find on the market at the moment are: 2012 One of the most gourmand of recent vintages; rich, soft and with a good long finish. 2013 Small harvest due to hail in July. Red fruit aromas with a pleasant dryness on the finish. 2014 Still more to come on the nose, but already nice, crunchy fruitiness on the palate. 2015 Still in barrel but very promising. There's a lot to like about the wines of Chorey-lès-Beaune, and -it would be wrong not to mention it at all- the undeniably much more affordable prices compared with many other appellations from Bourgogne make it all the more easy to understand why the wines of Chorey-lès-Beaune are beginning to attract serious attention. Pascal Arnoux steals a barrel sample at Domaine Arnoux Père et Fils. A mix of old and new barrels, as here at Domaine Maillard Père & Fils, imparts the perfect level of tannins in the wine.Left: Pascal Maillard in the cellar.

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