DOM MICHEL NIELLON BOURGOGNE BLANC 2018

Michel Niellon s son-in-law Michel Coutoux, who has been working with Niellon since 1990, described 2018 as having a more difficult growing season than most other communes in the Côte for the simple reason that despite an extremely wet spring, Chassagne had almost no rainfall thereafter. This contributed to noticeably more hydric stress, and especially in chardonnay, that was enough to slow development in some parcels. We picked from the 31st of August under near ideal conditions and brought in ripe and spotless fruit that required very little sorting. I have never seen pinot riper than chardonnay! Thank goodness that yields were reasonable because if not we would have had another 2003 on our hands. Potential alcohols for the whites had a fairly large range, coming in as they did between 12.5 and 14%. Stylistically, the wines are ripe but importantly, not too ripe and thus they should be capable of being accessible young but aging well over the medium-term. Fans of the domaine will notice that there is no Bâtard in the line-up and this is because the vines there were pulled up in early 2016; Coutoux estimates that we are unlikely to see it again until 2023 or 2024. Those in Chevalier will be progressively replaced as well over the next few years. Coutoux noted that the 2018s were bottled in August 2019.