The 2012 season, which was very difficult in the vines in the spring and until the middle of summer, fortunately ended well with a calm and beautiful month of September. We were therefore able to harvest very healthy grapes, with small, well-concentrated berries, reminiscent of the 2010 harvest. The balance of the juices was almost perfect.

No particular issue with élevage, that was very calm. The wines therefore proved to be particularly accessible in the month of November following the harvest, when the international press visited. 

It was only then that we grasped the singularity of this vintage, everyone raving about the charm, the accessibility of the wines... 

We had a vintage that bore all the marks of maturity and a nice concentration but without being overwhelming. There is a real difference there with rich vintages that we have known, in 2005 and 2009 for example: certainly impressive and to keep but dominating the complexity of the terroirs, at least at the beginning of their evolution. This is the originality of these 2012s: a lot of potential and real finesse. 

The comparison with recent vintages is, logically, difficult: a bit of the 2010s but without their rigor and severity, a bit of the 2002s, lighter and airier. There is every chance that this vintage will age well. But making a prediction is quite difficult... It seems so accessible today! Of course, a good presentation at the start does not mean a rapid evolution. It's more about when they will be at their peak. It could well be... all the time! One of those open, accessible vintages, offering the best face at every stage. We could thus take advantage of youth to savor the fruit and freshness of the villages, while quietly waiting for the most concentrated wines in the range to lose some of their youthful arrogance. A classic profile...

This vintage has not benefited from a proper tasting 5 years after its bottling, this practice having been inaugurated with the 2013 vintage, to furnish and entertain our customers during the first lock-down. 

But what we have been able to observe during these years, is a fairly tight and closed vintage. Alas, very different from what we had hoped for when it was bottled, where we envisaged a vintage accessible "all the time"...

It is actually just beginning to open up, we notably drank a sumptuous Clos Vougeot in 2022 (but which required 1 hour of decanting). The other wines are somewhat in the same vein, you often have to go get them, ask for them by opening them well in advance and airing them. 

Don't worry, patience will be rewarded and their natural finesse gives them an elegance that makes them quite approachable anyway.