Description
Pommard is a land of many faces. To simplify, vineyards on the north hill tend to produce perhaps the appellation’s most elegant wines. Further down the slope from there are the top flight premier cru Epenots vineyards. And mid-slope on the south hill is likely the appellation’s best vineyard, Les Rugiens, and below that is a collection of premier crus with greater girth and power due to their deeper topsoils. Like any village-classified wine from any appellation, there can be mega differences depending on where the grapes are grown. They could be high up on the slope above the premier crus and on stony soils, or below the premier crus on deeper topsoil that offer very little contact with the underlying limestone bedrock. The former makes for wines with more cut and higher tones, and the latter, more robust and fuller-flavored wines.
100% of the grapes are destemmed and placed in cement and stainless steel vats. The grape must is chilled down to eight degrees and then allowed to start a spontaneous fermentation that usually lasts about two to three weeks depending on the vintage conditions. They are lightly extracted using the infusion approach, which is to say very little is done to disturb the grapes during the fermentation and maceration. Once pressed, it’s settled in a tank overnight and gravity fed into into barrel the wines where they stay without racking until preparations for bottling. As he does with the white wines, the first sulfite addition is made at bottling and they are spared excess use of new oak during the aging.
Aging: Aged for 14-16 months in 75% old French oak and 25% new. This wine may receive a light filtration but is never fined.
