Meursault - Chardonnay BM

Chardonnay | 5 verschillende wijngaarden | gemiddelde leeftijd van 33 jaar oude stokken | 2,3 ha | klei en limestone terroir | typische 'nieuwe stijl' Meursault | zuren in balans 

Ballot-Millot

Familiedomein in één van de bekendste wijngebieden in de Bourgogne, Meursault. Sinds de 17e eeuw volgen de generaties elkaar hier op. Sinds 2001 staat Charles Ballot aan het roer. Hij is heel snel op weg naar de absolute top van witte Bourgognemakers. Traditie en innovatie zijn hier 2 sleutelwoorden. Respect voor 'terroir' en moderne technieken en materialen zorgen voor de allerbeste kwaliteit wijn. Traditionele cultuur, volledige vergisting op hout, lage rendementen. De weg naar volledige biologische teelt is ingezet.

Review

The 2017 Meursault Village is a blend of lieux-dits Les Pelles (below the premiers crus) and Chaumes des Narvaux (below Narvaux and above the premiers crus) with Les Corbins and Les Peutes Vignes (which touch Les Santenots). Offering up aromas of pear, green apple, peach and oatmeal, framed by a light touch of reduction, the wine is medium to full-bodied, nicely concentrated and tight-knit, with good structuring extract and back-end grip. This is a fine cuvée that's a touch old-fashioned in the best sense.

This was my first visit to Domaine Ballot-Millot, where Charles Ballot is producing serious wines, old-fashioned in the best sense, that deserve to be better known. Ballot told me that he generally presses whole bunches without crushing, his press cycle lasting three-and-a-half hours with some 15 rotations. Débourbage is brief to non-existent, and the wines go to barrel without addition of yeasts, enzymes or anything else. After 12 months in wood (from Tonnelleries Damy and Billon), they are fined in the event of any protein instability and remain in tank to digest any dissolved oxygen before bottling in January or February. The result is textural, structured wines with lovely cut and concentration that often display a gently reductive personality. Everything I tasted comes recommended.

Their village Meursault is from a total of just under 2ha of Chardonnay vines with an average age of 33 years. Dry and creamy, the nose has aromas of almond, hazelnut and butter. The palate is rich and generous with ripe fruit, taut minerality and butter and vanilla flavours from the oak. William Kelley 90/100

Today, the estate is comprised of 12 HA of vineyards, 7 of which are in Meursault proper. The relative vine age is old: Perrières (40+), Genevrières (70+), Narvaux (45-60), etc. Harvest is all done by hand, and fermentations take place with indigenous yeasts. Otherwise, everything in the cellar is done to encourage finesse and delineation over sheer power. The white wines see only 10-20% new oak (max 25%) and are raised without battonage. They are aged 12 months in barrel, and then racked to tank for additional 6 months of refinement as is now standard procedure at more and more of the top White Wine estates in Cote D’Or. For the reds, given the slightly more rustic line-up of appellations, the wines are all 100% de-stemmed with gentle extractions and cuvaisons that are relatively short. Here too, new wood use is judicious, with a max of 25-30% new.

The resulting wines tend toward the so-called “Roulot-school” of Meursault, more tensile and racy, as opposed to the fatter, honeyed and nutty style wines that dominated the landscape 20-30 years ago. There is excellent delineation of the different terroirs, which is exciting given the exceptional range of 1er Crus and Lieux-Dits that Ballot has to work with. Neil Martin