2013 Domaine Thierry et Pascale Matrot Puligny-Montrachet Les Chalumeaux 1er Cru

One Barrel of Matrot Puligny-Montrachet … and We Feel Pretty Good About It!

During the Great Recession, the top estates on many of the world’s most glamorous wine routes took it on the chin. As trattorias struggled to fill seats on Saturday night, Tuscan sales slipped. Napa Valley was rocked as wholesalers stopped answering supplier calls in response to the tightening of retailer belts. Bordeaux was saved by the Chinese, as American and British buyers headed for the exits.

But on the limestone-strewn hillsides above three small hamlets just south of Beaune, few growers paid the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns much mind. If the name outside your cellar door was Coche-Dury, Niellon, Matrot, Ramonet, Lafon, or Morey, and your families had long been tending the Premier Cru Chardonnay vineyards of the Côte de Beaune, even as the Dow crashed, it was business as usual.

In recent years, despite longstanding relationships and friendships among the superstars of Puligny-Montrachet, we’ve largely come up empty on release day. While 2013 was a miracle harvest, it was also a tiny one. With yields down nearly 70% from the norm, Thierry Matrot would harvest less than 2 tons per acre of small-berry Chardonnay off his now-priceless 3 acres of “Les Chalumeaux.” Total production was just 11 barrels. We made off with one — and honestly, we feel pretty good about it!

On plantings at the base of the Côte de Beaune, where there’s more clay and less limestone, growers tended vines in knee-high rubber boots in the extremely wet spring of 2013. The mud was six inches deep! Wet conditions prevailed until early June, making for a small and irregular fruit set. A devastating hailstorm ripped through Burgundy in July; both Puligny and Chassagne-Montrachet were touched, but a few villages over in Aloxe-Corton, up to 85% of the potential crop was destroyed in a single afternoon. A welcome heat spell in late August woke up the Chardonnay vines in Puligny, jump-starting the maturation cycle.

We often say that the vintages are made in broken in the last weeks before harvest. Such would be the case for Thierry Matrot in 2013. Burgundians finally awakened to sunny skies in the mid-September. Any risk of rot was quickly dispelled. The harvest took place under fine conditions in the first week of October. Natural sugars were surprisingly high. Acids, as always in Puligny-Montrachet, were electrifying.

The 2013 Thierry et Pascale Matrot Puligny-Montrachet “Les Chalumeaux” Premier Cru is exquisite. Brilliant golden yellow. Exotic aromas of blood orange, apple-honey, and pear, tinged with anise. Rich, dense, and suave on the attack, infused with a decadent mix of ripe apricot, orchard pit, and apple, at once opulent and precise, finishing with fine acidity and persistence.

92 points from Stephen Tanzer, the world’s most respected Burgundy critic. $100 on release — if you can find it in fine wine retail stores. Just $75 today on WineAccess. 300 bottles are up for grabs.

• ABV 13.00%
• Enjoy right away
• % Chardonnay