Given all the hype Europe’s 2015 vintage has received, simply mentioning that a wine is from 2015 serves as a tacit stamp of approval. But, when buying wine, “vintage sensitivity” cuts both ways: Just as there are great wines in so-called “bad” vintages (generalizing about vintages, to the point of assigning a score, is a tricky business to say the least), a so-called “vintage of the century” like 2015 doesn’t guarantee uniformly great wines.
Where red Burgundy is concerned, 2015 has excelled in part because the wines are uncommonly ripe and exuberant in their youth (and what’s not to like about that?)—but I’ve encountered quite a few that are overblown, inky, and lacking in complexity. Certain producers seem to have chosen the perfect time to harvest, while others may have waited too long—and given what you typically shell out to drink top red Burgundy, yes, you should hold the wines to a higher standard. All that said, the team at Domaine Chantal Lescure absolutely nailed 2015 with this Premier Cru Pommard “Les Bertins.” Not only is it one of the most successful 2015s from the Côte de Beaune that I’ve tried—and from a lesser-known Premier Cru just below the famous “Les Fremiers”—it reaches higher than what most people would consider possible in Pommard. If I were tasting this wine blind, I’d likely place it in a Côte de Nuits village like Morey-St-Denis; there’s a level of purity to the perfume and a silkiness on the palate that upends the conventional wisdom about Pommard being more “rustic.” Put plainly, it performs like something costing twice as much—and if you like smart, under-the-radar wines that are guaranteed to raise eyebrows, take all you can: This one is a sure bet.
The charmingly antiquated village of Pommard, as we’ve noted in other offers, is something of an anomaly: All its classified production is of red wine, even though it’s smack in the heart of the Chardonnay-dominated Côte de Beaune. Yes, it is sandwiched between Volnay and Beaune—both serious red wine appellations—but Pommard has always been treated as a bit of an outlier in terms of the style of its reds as well. Pommard’s reds are thought of as the most woodsy, mineral, structured reds of the Côte de Beaune, with more in common with, say, Gevrey-Chambertin than its closer neighbors. Just as it is somewhat impossible to generalize about vintages, wine styles from producer to producer don’t always fit neatly into prescribed categories. Then again, maybe it was indeed the heat, dryness, and luminosity of 2015 that pulled this “Les Bertins” into new, uncharted territory!
Pommard has no Grand Crus, although its two most famous Premier Crus, “Rugiens” and “Epenots,” have been put forward as candidates for “promotion” to the top tier. “Les Bertins” sits downslope from the assorted “Rugiens” crus and contains a higher concentration of clay than the higher-elevation sites, which—here we go again with the generalizations—historically resulted in slightly less structured and rustic wines. Yet, as with its fellow Premier Crus, Les Bertins also contains a substantial concentration of iron-rich limestone, and, as I said above, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a vineyard that delivered more pure pleasure and serious complexity than this one in 2015.
The late Chantal Lescure, still the namesake here, founded the domaine in 1975 with her husband, Xavier Machard de Gramont; today it’s their sons, Aymeric and Thibaud Machard de Gramont, who run the show, with the considerable help of longtime maître de chai (cellar master) François Chavériat. Overall, the Chantal Lescure domaine farms 18 hectares of vines spread across both the Côtes de Beaune and Nuits, with everything Certified Organic (Ecocert) since 2010. Their parcel in Les Bertins is a mere one hectare of very old vines, from which grapes are hand-harvested and fermented on indigenous yeasts in steel before 18 months’ aging in French oak barriques (30%-50% new).
What struck me about Chantal Lescure’s 2015 Les Bertins was not how thrillingly perfumed and compex it was right out of the gate, but how it revealed new layers with time in the glass. It’s a deep ruby moving to garnet and pink at the rim (not inky-purple like many 2015s), with an evocative nose of cherry blossoms, ripe raspberry, red currant, wet rose petals, black tea, and hints of leather and delicate spice. Medium-plus in body and supported by soft, fine-grained, perfectly ripe tannins, this is a complete wine already but shows no ‘raisining’ from over-ripe fruit; there is a firm, upright structure to the wine that suggests to me a long life ahead. This is the kind of wine I’d re-visit periodically over the next 5-7 years, fully expecting new thrills every time. In the short term, I’d suggest decanting it 60 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees. And whereas I might typically lean towards a rustic beef bourguignon with a Pommard, this one calls for something a little showier: check out the attached lamb recipe and share the combination with someone you really care about! Enjoy!
