Côte de Beaune Villages 2020 6x75cl

Supple, medium-bodied Pinot Noir showing delicious lifted fruit.

Vineyards

Made from outlying vineyards, together with fruit sourced from the villages of Santenay, Auxey-Duresses, Savigny, Chorey-lès-Beaune and Ladoix.

Vintage

Winter 2019-20 was, once again, extremely mild, particularly in February. It was also a dry winter, throughout the period of January to March. Nevertheless, the last few months of 2019 brought enough rainfall to replenish the water reserves in the soils. This mild weather continued throughout March, and in the more sheltered areas vegetative growth was seen very early on, towards the end of March. The first days of April were cooler, and helped to slow the pace of growth slightly, but things picked up again during the last half of the month, when temperatures rose to around 25°C. These unusual spring conditions are key to understanding the unusual nature of this vintage as the plants were able to synthesize high levels of organic acids. May brought some rainfall, which allowed the vines to continue their growth uninterrupted, and the first flowers were seen on the young Chardonnay vines in mid-May. Full flowering took place towards the end of May and the beginning of June, and the berries swelled rapidly despite the general lack of rainfall. The vines were able to get sufficient water from the reserves laid down in the soil during the winter months. Growth was not entirely even across the region, or even the grape varieties, but we can broadly generalize that it was around three weeks ahead of schedule by midway through flowering point in all of our vineyards, relative to the previous year. The dry conditions meant that there was little concern over fungal diseases before summer arrived. Summer announced itself with the first hints of veraison right at the start of July. Burgundy sweltered through several heatwaves. The extremely dry weather slowed the pace of veraison by the end of July, particularly among the vines carrying the heaviest weight of bunches. Nevertheless, by the end of July, veraison had more or less passed the midway point, and the leaves remained green. The vines were coping well with the conditions. The slopes were hit by a further heatwave in mid

Winemaking

Fermented in vats for 4 weeks, the wine is then transferred to oak barrels for 15 months ageing before bottling.

Enjoy with:

A local speciality would be kidneys in a creamy Dijon sauce.