Description
RP (90-92) - The Wine Advocate - Neal Martin
The 2015 Griotte-Chambertin Grand Cru has the most composed bouquet of Laurent Ponsot's grand crus from the Gevrey appéllation, with seductive scents of black cherry, wild strawberry and crushed violet. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin and crisp acidity, pretty dark cherries and blueberry here with a slither of Seville orange marmalade on the finish. It is a satisfactory Griotte Chambertin, although I would like to see more depth, more energy conveyed towards the finish.
I have admired Laurent Ponsot's wines for many years, so trust me, I was as vexed as anyone when his 2015s left me scratching my head. "I started picking on 22 September and finished 7 days later," Laurent told me. "The 2015 was an easy vintage. There was pressure from oïdium but there were no big disaster. The yields were low, between 20-22hl/ha. It is the kind of vintage where the vintage taste takes over from the terroir - in 2014 it was different. Nothing racked at the moment or will be until bottling." It is the date that sticks out - 22 September. Compare that with his fellow winemakers in Morey-Saint-Denis: 3 September (Thierry Broin at Clos des Lambrays), 5 September (Christophe Perrot-Minot and Jacques Desvauges at Clos de Tart) and 8 September (Cécile Tremblay and Romain Taupenot). So you are looking at some 2 weeks difference in picking. When I asked Laurent he told me that he has picked according to Nature's signs since 1983, to the extent that he sets the picking date as far back as June or July. Now, I love an outlier, a winemaker that furrows their own path. I never prejudge any wine until I have tasted it, so despite the difference in picking dates I came to no conclusion, notwithstanding that I have been tasting at Domaine Ponsot for many years. I've been here before. And you could argue that as the year draws on those daylight hours shorten, so 2 weeks extra in September is not the same as at the end of August. However, on several of these wines I found myself asking the same question...where's the fruit? Where had it gone? Perhaps the wines were simply not showing well at the time, however, my concern is that following some three months of dry and warm conditions, extended fruit hang would ineluctably leave the grapes too high in sugar and low in acidity. Those were not my concerns: the wines did not seem excessively alcoholic. It was that the fruit seemed static rather than animated, in comparison to previous vintages that have tasted at Ponsot. I asked Laurent, if he picked on 22 September, does that imply that the aforementioned growers picked too early? Of course, it depends on the unique circumstance for each parcel of vine - winemaking is holistic and Laurent did not say that was the case. I just feel there is a point whereby too late is too late. Maybe I'll re-taste the wines and eat my words - nothing would give me more pleasure. And yes, not everything left me feeling the same way and it is remarkable that some of the whites tasted as fresh as they did when some growers had the secateurs out at the end of August. So, let's see what happens in bottle.