Domaine Berthaut Gerbet Vosne Romanée 1er Cru Les Petits Monts 2016

"The 2016 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru les Petits Monts, a vineyard that is completely worked by hand and horse, has a mineral-driven, almost austere bouquet at first, but it opens up gloriously in the glass. There is real energy here. The palate is very well defined with strawberry pastilles and a touch of blue fruit, tapering a little toward the finish (perhaps due to the cold cellar) but still leaving you with the impression that it will blossom with four or five years in bottle.

Amélie Berthaut is rapidly becoming the most well-known winemaker in the village of Fixin, with the wines under her tenure gaining wide acclaim. That this has been contemporaneous with an expansion of holdings from her mother’s side of the family seems to have elevated her status higher still. With vineyard prices reaching stratospheric levels, it is rare not only to see someone young take over the running of a domaine and take it to a higher level, but to also be blessed with her family’s own vines upon which she can practice her craft. And to be honest, I cannot think of anyone who deserves it more. Nevertheless, she was not spared the onslaught of the frost in 2016, and I began by asking Amélie about the damage. “In Fixin it depends upon the vineyard. Some were affected up to 70% or 80%. We were lucky because we have so many different vineyards, and we are OK compared to other growers in Marsannay and Chambolle-Musigny. For some vineyards, we thought that the day after the frost it was really bad. As it turned out, the damage was not as severe as we expected. In Les Crais, 80% of the vineyard was frosted, but we lost around 40% to 50% of the average production. It was the oldest vines that found it difficult to grow again. There is no single-vineyard Gevrey Clos des Chezeaux. We started the picking on 26 September, and it was difficult to decide the order to harvest the blocks, and in the end we chose a different order to other years. We finished on 12 October in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits.”"

Neal Martin 91-93 Punkte (Dez. 2017)