“I have followed the career winemaker Benjamin Leroux from his days at Domaine de la Vougeraie, through Domaine Comte Armand, then starting his own venture when he cohabited with Nicolas Rossignol to becoming the sole tenant of his winery in Beaune where there has been a proliferation of cuvées in recent years. Perhaps now, as Leroux gets older, he is opening another chapter, as the hunger to venture into new climats recedes and he focuses in on the sites for which he has an affinity. ‘I have bought an additional 3.6-hectares en fermage so that there are now 7.6-hectares, more Bourgogne Blanc, Meursault, and more Blagny La Pièce Sous Le Bois in red and white - also Volnay Santenots and Meursault Charmes-Dessus.’ This is part of Leroux’s transitioning from négociant to vineyard owner, a process that can only be done in piecemeal process unless you an outsider with bottomless pockets ….
‘We picked from August 20 and nearly everything was harvested within a week,’ he told me. ‘The original plan was to begin on August 25. But there was no rain predicted, so there was no reason not to pick sooner. We had the same amount of bunches on the vine, though the reds had a lot of millerandage, so the skin-to-juice ratio was quite high. We had close to 360–370kg per barrel and 320kg for the white. Since 2018, we have used a cold room, so we can preserve the bunches at under 13°C. I had never seen juice with so much color, and therefore we were very gentle with the maceration. I used more whole bunch for the reds to lend freshness, and these days, there is not such an excess of potassium [in the soil], so we can preserve the acidity. I was not expecting the 2020 whites to do so well. I like the ripeness and concentration of the reds, and racking, which we don’t usually do, is helping a lot. All my whites are bottled under Diam, mainly Diam 30, but not all of them, and I use natural cork for the reds.’”
Neal Martin, Vinous |
