BH 91-93
Note: from a 1.37 ha parcel
Producer note: Jean-Marc Roulot was called away due to an emergency though he still kindly arranged for me to taste with his assistant winemaker Eric Bodin. Bodin's take on the 2012 vintage is that "it was a very complicated growing season with two dramatic hail storms punctuated by severe attacks of mildew and oidium. Throw in a lot of sunburned fruit and a lousy flowering and you have a pretty good recipe for very low yields. About the only problem we managed to avoid was rot which is at least something. Relative to most of our neighbors in the Côte we began picking very early which is to say on the 13th of September. There was some sorting necessary but when you consider everything that Mother Nature threw at us during the season it was a lot less than anyone expected. Sugars and acidities were strong given that the potential alcohols were between 12 and 13% and the post-malo pHs were between 3.05 and 3.10 which is pretty low. We did some lees stirring early but not much later in the élevage process. We kept the wines in barrel for 12 months and then racked them into stainless steel holding tanks where we plan to bottle them in March 2014. I very much like the style of the wines as they are rich but vibrant. I just wish that we had more of them as we were down from 50 to 60% depending on the appellation in question." I found the quality of the Roulot 2012s to not only be excellent but to be significantly better than the average quality in the context of the vintage. The primary reason is because they are more vibrant thanks to the better acid levels due to the earlier picking date. Concomitantly they also express their respective terroirs more clearly. In short, Roulot's 2012s are among the best wines of the vintage. In the same vein, with the exception of a somewhat curious Tillets, the Roulot 2011s, some of which were revisited in bottle below, are very impressive as well and well-worth your attention; Bodin noted that they were bottled between February and April, 2013. Note that the 2012 Les Tillets was not presented.
Tasting note: A gorgeous, elegant and pure nose offers up aromas of white flowers, citrus rind, pear, apple and discreet mineral notes. The ultra-refined and intense middle weight flavors possess excellent delineation before culminating in a relatively dry, linear and focused finish that displays real drive. This strikingly pretty and well-balanced effort is an exercise in harmony and finesse with a delicate mouth feel.