Tasting prenatal 2016 Burgundies from the Hospices de Beaune

Hospices de Beaune
Tasted Saturday, November 19, 2016 by PanosKakaviatos with 422 views

Introduction

Now the that the Hospices de Beaune auction is behind us - with a very good result overall for important charities - we can talk about some very, very early assessments of the quality of the vintage. Having visited the domain back in late September, and now having tasted many of the 45 cuvées red and white, with some reassuring comments and opinions from fellow wine loving writers Amanda Regan and Michael Apstein, I suppose it could be safe to say that the reds from this vintage will turn out better overall than the whites. And you know what? I'll leave it at that!

Indeed, for some people, tasting 2016 at such an absurdly early stage is "simply useless". That's how one prominent wine author put it over a lunch in Burgundy, but then again, he recently wrote an article on ... the quality of the wines! Lol!

Sure, most all wines have not yet undergone their malolactic fermentation, the whites especially were quite cloudy, out of balance and basically very difficult to assess. But for the past several years, I have enjoyed trying to assess the prenatal wines of the domaine of Hospices de Beaune, one day before they go under the hammer at the celebrated Hospices de Beaune wine auction. Once again, wine writers Amanda Regan and Michael Apstein joined me to trade notes and impressions, focusing mainly on structure, texture and length, while taking into account the aforementioned limited conditions. Indeed, it is quite fascinating to taste reds that have not yet undergone malolactic fermentation. What if the wines already seem rather round and soft? Would the ensuing lactic acid make the wines perhaps … too round and soft? Interestingly, I did not get that impression from the often rather structured 2016s tasted, that had still the malolactic to go.

All in all, quite promising for the reds.

Wine director Ludivine Griveau explained before the tasting that of the 32 red cuvées, only two had undergone full malolactic fermentation (the Beaune 1er Cru Maurice Drouhin and the Volnay Santenots 1er Cru Jehan de Massol). Nearly all of the 13 whites were very cloudy and conveyed a disjointed aspect overall. I recall my visit to the domain when grapes were coming in to the vat room, and how the reds seemed overall better looking than the whites. A few points that Ludivine raised: no whole cluster fermentation, no stirring of the lees this year, and no need to add corrective acidity for either the whites or the reds. Nevertheless, I wonder if they would have ended up doing better, had they acidified for some of the whites ...

Flight 1 - A darn good Monthelie and a promising start to many Beaunes (6 Notes)

Flight 2 - More AOC Beaunes, more promising news. (4 Notes)

Flight 3 - Several Volnays and Pommards: I liked the latter more (6 Notes)

Flight 4 - And some grands crus (6 Notes)

Flight 5 - The difficult to assess whites... (7 Notes)

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