CLOS DE VOUGEOT
GRAND CRU 2018
CLOS DE VOUGEOT
GRAND CRU 2018
Grape variety
Tasting notes
Visual: Deep ruby colour with violet tints.
Nose: Elegant woody notes and aromas of pecan nuts, sweet spices and truffles.
Palate: A great wine full of woodiness showing elegant tannins that require a few years to mellow.
Wine and food pairing
This Grand Cru wine will perfectly go with meat stews, small and large game, goose and soft cheeses.
Serving temperature
Ageing potential
This wine can be laid down for around 10 to 15 years.
History
The measurements of this vineyard alone are enough to make it exceptional with over 50,59 ha of Grand Cru vines, including 49,13 ha exclusively dedicated to the Pinot Noir. The clos slopes up from the main road, extending up to the base of the butte. Altitude is of no great importance here, varying from 240 to 270 metres.
Founded around 1110 by the monks from the nearby Citeaux Abbey, the vineyard is still surrounded by the walls dating back for 5 centuries. The vine coming from this walled ("clos") vineyard is the figurehead of the Burgundy red Grands Crus. The "Grand Cru" Appellation has been created end of July 1937.
Close to the cellars, ancestral and huge wine presses are still to be discovered in the winery. The castle, evoking the Burgundian Renaissance period, is open for visits and hosts the famous "Chevalliers du Tastevin" brotherhood's diners called "chapitres", the greatest "table d'hôte" in France !
Vinification and maturing
They were sorted a second time at their arrival at the winery, before being completely de-stemmed but not crushed and put into vats. Maceration lasted approximately three weeks with regulard punching of the cap. No additives such as yeast, enzymes or tannins are used to respect the precious terroir. The wine was then aged for 15 months in 228 L. French oak barrels (no new oak).
Vintage : 2018
It is quite hardly to sum up the vintage 2018 in a few words! Winter, grey and humid was followed by a capricious spring, subject to frosts and alternating times of sunshine and storms on an almost daily basis from May to the mid-June, making this period particularly stressful for our people in the vineyards.
Then came an incredible time of nice weather, hot, very hot and even heatwave periods until the end of… October!
Another particular vintage which looks like no other! As rainfalls episodes were particularly localized, we had to deal with very different degree of ripeness from a plot to another, depending of the water volume received by each vineyard.
In 2018, as in other French wine region, quality and quantity were very satisfactory on our whole vineyard and were are very pleased with the quality of the vinified juices currently ageing in 228 L. Burgundian barrels in our cellars.
Harvest took place on our vineyards between the end of August (27th) and the 18th of September under a hot and persistent autumn sun. Even if the weather was very nice, the harvest period was very long and demanding in the vineyards as well as in the winery, due to the particularly different stages of ripeness. This is, without doubt, what one will retain from this harvest: so different ripeness degrees and so very different harvesting time from a village to another and even from a parcel to another in the same vineyard!
White wines were mostly harvested first in order to keep a nice acidity on this particularly solar vintage.
Reds, in their purple violine dress, already augur a rich and powerful vintage.