Domaine Louis Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru ‘Estournelles Saint Jacques’ 2018

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Burgundy has shifted in through a cycle dominated by negociants who purchased barrels of wine and bottled them under their own name to growers bottling under their own name, often without using the vineyard names, then adding all of the Cru and Lieux Dits names.

In that time the negociants shifted to taking greater involvement in vineyards, and owning vineyards.

The best has invested heavily in their owned vineyards, working with vineyard owners to raise the quality of their fruit, and evolving slowly to find the balance between time tested winemaking techniques and innovation through science.

Louis Jadot has been able to carefully navigate the changes in Burgundy, and smoothly transition custodianship from Jacques Lardière, a veteran of 42 vintages at Jadot, to Fréderic Barnier who has lead Jadot since 2012.

About Maison Louis Jadot

Maison Louis Jadot was established in 1859 by Louis Henri Denis Jadot and developed by succeeding generations. In 1985 their US distributor Rudi Kopf purchased the business while also purchasing Domaine Clair Daü (which brought with it Grand Crus of Chambertin Clos de Bèze, Bonnes Mares, Clos Vougeot and Corton Grèves).

Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot has long belonged to the Jadot family and includes the original Louis Jadot Monopole Beaune Premier Cru ‘Clos des Ursules’ vineyard, purchased in 1826, plus Corton Pougets  and Corton Charlemagne. Pierre Henri-Gagey, current President succeeded his father André Gagey in 1992 and today his son Thibault is deeply involved in Louis Jadot. Domaine Gagey has been in their family for generations, and in­cludes great vineyards in Clos Saint Denis and Echézeaux.

Domaine du Duc de Magenta is not strictly owned by Louis Jadot, but is on a very long term, exclusive contract for the Chassa­gne Montrachet Premier Cru Morgeot ‘Clos de la Chapelle’. In the 1990’s Louis Jadot invested in vineyards such as Côte de Nuits Villages Le Vaucrain and Beaujolais Chateau des Jacques Moulin-a-Vent and Morgon, and began working their own cooperage, Cadus, based in Ladoix.

Enjoy these fascinating podcast with Levi Dalton & Jacques Lardière who look after Jadot for 42 vintages and his successor Frederic Barnier. As Levi notes, you’ll definitely have to listen to the one with Jacques twice to even start to get your head around the discussion.

In the Vineyard

The Louis Jadot Domaine (comprised of 125 hectares over 28 communes, 298 parcels and 45 growers) is spread across three geographic centres, each working with its own team and its own tools, which minimises Louis Jadot’s carbon footprint across the broader Burgundian region.

In the Winery

From Frederic Barnier via Burghound
The fruit was essentially spotless save for some sunburned berries that sorting tables now remove easily. Yields were not great though to be fair, neither were they truly dismal as the chardonnay came in between 33 and 35 hl/ha and the pinot was basically between 30 and 34 hl/ha. Interestingly, the potential alcohols were essentially the same for both colors, ranging as they did between 13.8 and 14.2%. I chose to use a bit of whole cluster, but it wasn’t systematic. I used a light hand with the extractions as it would have been easy to have had an excess of tannins. The fermentations passed easily and the malos for many reds were finished before Christmas. By contrast, I chose to block on average 50% of the malolactic fermentation to help them retain more natural acidity. As to the wines, they have excellent energy and transparency with good mid-palate fat. As such, 2019 should be one of those vintages that will provide early drinking pleasure but also reward at least mid-term cellaring.

Red Winemaking at Louis Jadot
Louis Jadot’s wineries are the envy of any serious winemaker. Blending simplicity of tried and tested techniques & equipment with the possibilities science and technology offer.

2018 Côte d’Or vintage report by Frederic Barnier

“Technical director Frédéric Barnier, who is always a wealth of information about each vintage, described 2018 as one with a “growing season that began early with relatively warm but wet conditions and no frost damage save for a few lower lying parcels. Then, as the summer progressed, temperatures were warmer than normal with low levels of rainfall though, and importantly, this was highly variable. I would describe the heat more as constant than necessarily extreme; indeed I think of it as a controlled green house where it’s definitely warm but not blazing. One of the most important aspects of the vintage is how well, and how fast, the flowering passed. It was over in only 5 days for the chardonnay and amazingly, almost 100% of the pinot flower fructified. This of course, generally speaking, makes for an abundant fruit set but also uniform maturities. Now the latter didn’t necessarily turn out to be the case but that was for different reasons that I will get to. But it would definitely be fair to say that globally speaking, we made a lot of wine in 2018 and particularly so in Meursault and Savigny. Climatically, it wasn’t too bad save for hail that fell in Comblanchien, Prémeaux and the south side of Nuits plus we did have a vicious attack of mildew, which in certain sectors caused us some grief. In the end we were able to beat it back but not without considerable effort. Towards the end of the vegetative cycle we began to see some hydric stress that did have an effect on differing levels of maturities from one commune to another depending on whether there had been a bit of rain or not. For example, Volnay and Pommard received a bit more rainfall than other communes in the Côte de Beaune and, not surprisingly, those communes arrived at optimum maturity earlier than those that received less rainfall. Certain growers began picking on the 22nd of August, but I can assure you that the chardonnay was not ripe at that point. We chose to pick our Volnay fruit on the 29th of August but then began the harvest in earnest on the 1st of September and picked through to the 15th. For the first time ever, we used 3 picking teams of around 60 people per team as we knew how important it was to get the fruit in quickly. The fruit was ripe and spotless, so it made picking much faster. Another aspect that tends to be ignored when speaking of vintages is that typically when yields are high the general wisdom is that quality is low. In this case the vintage was in fact saved by the yields because if we had had, say 2003-like yields, the fruit would have dried out before it ever got ripe. Of course, this isn’t to say that extremely high yields are a good idea either because they aren’t, but yields of 25 hl/ha in 2018 would have been a disaster. Potential alcohols for the pinot were on the higher side without being extreme as they were generally uniform, ranging as they did from 13.5 to 14% with a few wines at 14.2%. The chardonnay was similar, coming in at between 13.5 to 13.9%. However, those figures hide a nuance in the sense that the conversion rate of grams of sugar per degree of alcohol per liter of grape juice differed between reds and whites. The reds required from 17 to 17.5 grams per degree per liter whereas the whites required only 16.5. The vinifications were relatively straightforward as the extractions, and especially the colors, came easily with little manipulation. I used relatively small percentages of whole cluster for the wines from the Côte de Beaune though a bit more for those from the Côte de Nuits, though in no case did I use more than 30%. While the vinifications were pretty straightforward to manage, the reverse has been true of the élevage in the sense that we have been hypervigilant to make sure that we don’t have technical deviations and in particular for volatile acidity. This is true even though the pHs for the reds are pretty much textbook as they ranged from 3.4 to 3.6, which is not particularly high. As to the style of the reds, they are certainly ripe with tender and forward flavors that are supported by suave tannins that are softer than say the tannins we obtained in another very ripe vintage like 2015. Stated differently, they have plenty of underlying material but with a certain tenderness.”

Where in the World is Louis Jadot

Louis Jadot is based in Beaune, but their wines come from parcels all across Burgundy. The Domaine owns more than 150 hectares of vineyards, 70 Ha of which lie in the Côte d’Or, ranging from Villages to some of the most sought after Premier and Grand Cru parcels in the region.

This particular wine comes from Gevrey-Chambertin.