Tasting Notes
Robert Parker 91-93
The 2014 Gevrey Chambertin les Evocelles was nearly totally millerandage-affected, and as a consequence it was the ripest picking at 12.6 degrees potential. It offers strawberry pastilles and blackcurrant on the nose, a hint of wild heather. This is very intriguing. The palate is medium-bodied with succulent red berry fruit, orange zest and minerals, crisp and taut with good delineation and intensity on the finish. This is excellent — one of the best from Louis Boillot this year. A couple of weeks after visiting his wife Ghislaine Barthod, I returned to taste her husband Louis Boillot’s wines. Whilst Ghislaine’s cluster around Chambolle, Louis’s are scattered across the Cote de Beaune and the Cote de Nuits, sometimes in very small parcels that amount to no more than a barrel (indeed, I sometimes wonder whether a bit more cross-vineyard blending might benefit the wines). He told me that he picked the fruit from September 13 except for the Volnay les Angles, which was harvested two days earlier since it ripens early and the acidity rapidly falls. Everything here is extracted through remontage and there is no pigeage undertaken. He also has three new wines from Beaujolais that I have included here. These Moulin-a-Vent are treated just like his own Pinot Noir: destemmed, no carbonic maceration, one pigeage, two remontage per day for ten minutes and a three-day cuvaison. Starting down in Beaujolais, to be honest, I felt these wines might miss the point of what Beaujolais should be, what it excels at. The more I taste and visit Beaujolais, the more I feel that I underappreciated its simplistic joy via Gamay and through carbonic maceration. Sometimes I feel that growers in the Cote d’Or are dressing it up as a Burgundy. Irrespective of terroir, it is not a comfortable fit. Gamay dislikes being told to wear somebody’s else’s clothes, however good the intentions of the winemaker. I just think these were good wines made the wrong way. His wines in the Cote d’Or tend to be unfairly overshadowed by Ghislaine’s; I say unfair because that early-picked Volnay 1er Cru Angles and Pommard Fremiers are excellent wines that are worth seeking out. Where I think Louis really excelled was actually up in Gevrey, not only with a delightful Evocelles, but with a fine Village Cru from several parcels around the village.
Anticipated maturity: 2018-2032
JancisRobinson.com 16
Lively and with lots of freshness – after this rich chestnutty impact. Dry finish.
Anticipated maturity: 2018-2024
