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Wine Description
The Story
Puligny-Montrachet, along with Chassagne, is the most perfect expression of the Chardonnay grape. The appellation was created in 1937 on « terroirs » separated by only a few metres from the Grands Crus. The white wines have well-defined personalities and an established reputation. The plots which adjoin the hamlet of Blagny produce an excellent red wine from the Pinot Noir grape.
The vines in many cases occupy brown limestone soils, or soils where limestone alternates with marls and limey-clays. Soils are deep in some places. In others, the rock is exposed at the surface. Where there are clayey alluvia, these are coarser higher up and finer at the foot of the slope. Exposures east and south east. Altitudes : 230-320 metres.
White: this wine is a bright gold colour with greenish highlights, becoming more intense with age. The bouquet brings together hawthorn blossoms, ripe grapes, marzipan, hazelnut, amber, lemon-grass and green apple. Milky (butter, hot croissant) and mineral aromas (flint) are commonplace, as is honey. Body and bouquet blend into a subtle harmony. This wine combines grace with a welldefined character and a remarkable concentration.
Red: the red wine is bright ruby when young, darkening with age. Its bouquet is divided between small red fruits (raspberry gooseberry) and black fruits (blackcurrant blackberry) later shifting towards leather, musk and fur. Tender and well-fruited, it is well put-together and does well with several years' aging.
White: Puligny-Montrachet and its Premiers Crus are concentrated and well-bred. Their balance, aromatic complexity, and purified style demand delicate but rich food. They are equally at home with poultry in sauce or veal fried with mushrooms. Their great distinction elicits a grateful response from fattened goose liver (foie gras), lobster, crawfish, and grilled or fried sea-fish. On the cheese-board, its natural allies are goat cheeses, Reblochon, or soft-centred cheeses like Brie de Meaux.Serving temperature: 11 to 13 °C
Red: its opulent and fleshy structure will lend lusciousness and fullness to veal, pork, and roast fowl, as well as to hard cheeses like Comté.
Serving temperature: 14 to 16 °C
Wine Information
“Louis Jadot has always let its land and the terroir speak for themselves. The less we try to control them the better the wines are and the longer we can enjoy them.”
Passion is a word that is bandied about among most winemakers to describe their relationship with wine and its production. The word is unfortunately rather overused. As no matter how hard you try to find the sort of red-faced enthusiasm that comes from passion and the feeling of being carried away that goes along with it, you will not find them in the face of the storyteller or in the wine itself. But is it not passion that makes the good become excellent and the mediocre become good? Passion is also what sets Jadot apart from many other good, large estates.
FROM THE EARTH’S ENERGY FIELD TO THE POSITION OF THE MOON
Passion simply radiates from Jacques Lardière, Jadot’s principle winemaker. His passion for his job, for example, engulfs anyone who listens to him. It is a bit like being in a trance at a revivalist gathering. Although Lardière has been responsible for the quality of the wines at Jadot for 30 years now, he is still boyishly enthusiastic about telling the numerous secrets surrounding the production of his wines. He believes in biodynamic cultivation and carries out biodynamic experiments on Jadot’s own plots. He knows that the vines will only produce perfect grapes if they are in natural harmony with their environment and its energy field. No chemical protective agents or fertilisers are used to upset the natural, sacred balance of things. Lardière believes that chemical additives, if used, can end up in the final product and harm its natural equilibrium.
Lardière does not speak about harvesting grapes so much as harnessing the earth’s energy. He harvests his crop as late as possible and is one of the last growers to do so in the region. He is also adventurous enough to let nature control the fermentation temperature of the wine. There are risks associated with all this, because biodynamic cultivation is more prone to attack by pests and more exposed to changeable weather conditions. According to Lardière, however, tragedy is also a part of the great natural cycle. He also follows the position of heavenly bodies closely. Lardière only allows the grapes to be hand-picked and the wines to be moved in to the cellars by means of gravity when the position of the moon is favourable.
Lardière does not speak about harvesting grapes so much as harnessing the earth’s energy.
THE BIRTH OF LIFE
Lardière sums up his own philosophy of wine production in two words: “delivering life”. He believes the winemaker’s role is to take over where nature leaves off, i.e. give the grapes ‘eternal life’ in the shape of sublime wine. This was the philosophy at Jadot, apparently, even before Lardière came along. The evidence of eternal life provided by the wines in that Belgian cellar is quite persuasive. I asked him about the future of the current wine stock and he was quite convinced of their longevity and added that it was precisely his job to ensure that Jadot’s wines were drinkable both now and in a 100 years’ time.
“Louis Jadot has always let its land and the terroir speak for themselves. The less we try to control them the better the wines are and the longer we can enjoy them,” he says.
THE CRITICS’ BLESSING
Jacques Lardière is one of those rare individuals whose reliability with regard to quality Robert Parker, Decanter, Clive Coates and Wine Spectator all agree on. And I can count myself among them, because tasting his latest vintages definitely put a smile on my face. Jadot’s own vineyard vintages 2003 and 2004 Clos des Ursules and Chambertin were already immensely enjoyable and fine-tuned. For the most part, the wines were superbly made, stylish and fairly personal, which is good for an estate that produces around 150 different wines each year and for which the grapes are mainly purchased from contracted growers. Of course, among all these, there were some mediocre and modest wines, but I did not taste a really bad one either. The scores I gave ranged between 82 and 96. The very best wines came up to the level of the smaller top Burgundy producers. They, very naturally, conveyed that mutual sense of respect that winemaker and nature have for one another.
It has been Jacques Lardière’s calling to primarily use the forces of nature to produce genuine Burgundy wine with its own distinct terroir and that is also the passionate embodiment of perfection. It has already yielded good results – wines with a seductive personality that will tell their tale for many generations to come.
Fine
Vintage 1998
1998 VINTAGE in Burgundy
The 1998 vintage was born under good auspices and has real potential. In spite of the occasional capricious weather conditions, the harvest has given us wines full of promise ? some fruity and seductive, others meaty and more structured.
After brief cold spells in January and February, the vines enjoyed temperatures above the seasonal average in March. This mild weather was interrupted by cold and rainy conditions in early spring. More clement weather returned in May and got growth off to a good start though, later, a slight drop in temperature slowed down the end of the flowering period. Odium broke out but did only local damage and overall the health of the vines remained satisfactory. The summer was on the whole hot and dry. Some limited hail damage occurred. Whilst scorching temperatures in August led to rapid colouring-up (vérasion) and a promising start to maturation. Rain in September was fortunately concentrated at the beginning and end of the month. By and large, harvesting took place in excellent conditions under sunny skies.
As always, the quest for optimum maturity was the key factor in deciding when harvesting should begin. The composition of the grapes was good nut the presence of botrytis gave rise in many cases to a need for sorting ? more or less rigorously according to situation. On the whole, average sugar content and acidity levels were both satisfactory. The ?ban de vendanges? was lifted the 10th of September confirming a somewhat precocious year.
At Domaine Latour, we began the harvest on Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd and selected only those vineyards with more than 12° of natural sugar content. The grapes maturity appeared to depend on the age of the vines, the older vines with stronger roots were the most resistant to the drought and therefore in the best condition.
During the period of good weather, the grape juice was re-concentrated. Over 80 percent of our crop was brought in between Monday 21st and Saturday 26th in perfect harvesting conditions. Such was the urgency to harvest before the rains returned, that all available personnel at Maison Latour were mobilised in addition to the harvesters, for the first time in twenty years.
We were able to finish harvesting on Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd October, just before the weather pattern changed again. The careful selection of fruit in the vineyards and on selection tables at our winery ensured that only the very best fruit in the best possible condition went into the vat.
The red grapes that were harvested before the rains came, have good concentration and especially good colour. They have a firm tannic structure that will enable the wines to age gracefully, and the acidity is balanced, but not as high as in 1996. All of the fermentation?s this year were rapid which has helped to soften the wines, and retain that brilliant Pinot Noir colour.
The white 1998s from Domaine Latour are great. Our Corton Charlemagne was picked before the rains came, under fantastic conditions, with sugar levels of between 12.5° and 12.8°. It will surely be a great wine that will benefit from some cellaring. A small crop was harvested from Chevaliers Montrachet Les Demoiselles due to damage caused by the late April frosts, these grapes were of great quality and in a perfect state of physiological maturity.
To sum up the 1998 vintage; the white wines are expressive and pleasing, notable for their elegance and agreeable acidity. For the reds the colour is good and they have a balanced structure and well developed fruit underpinned by harmonious tannins, which bode well for their future.
