Roulot '17's

Just getting around to finishing my notes from a trip last year.

Tasting at Domaine Roulot is always a treat. The wines here are about clarity and restraint, and it is a visit where you see each vineyard expressed in its most pure form.

Colin was in pure form, expressing himself in his usual manner. There was an ’eager beaver’ as part of our tasting group, inserting his opinions at every available juncture. Colin whispered to me that “he had a superior lack of knowledge that we couldn’t match”. This slightly annoying Somm couldn’t detract from the sublime set of ‘17’s that Roulot has in bottle.

2017 Domaine Roulot Bourgogne Blanc: All Domaine fruit, this is citrus central. Lemon fruit with a grapefruit spine. Plenty of mineral and very fine and long for its level.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Vireuils: Intense citrus, cool rock minerality. Linear and focused. There’s richness with restraint.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Meix Chavaux: Delicate white peach aromas and flavours, trimmed with floral spice. Nervy and tense, with a chalk-laden finish.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Luchets: Smoky mineral notes along with white peach, lemon and straw. Really good depth and volume in the mouth, with great precision and a long saline infused finish.

There will be no Tillets for a few years as the vineyard was just re-planted this week.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Tessons Clos de Mon Plaisir: Complex aromatics of citrus blossom, smoke, white peach and slate. It is full, rich, intense and long, loaded with dry extract at the back-end.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault 1er Cru Les Poruzots: Dense and tight, loaded with sappy orchard fruits. It is voluminous, with a suggestion of almond butter flavour and a fresh, tangy finish. There’s plenty of floral spice to the long finish.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault 1er Cru Clos des Bouchères: Some mineral reduction at first. Explosive white peach and green melon fruits in the mouth. Layered and creamy, tightening towards the finish and leaving a fresh iodine note once swallowed.

2017 Domaine Roulot Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières: So fine and complex, with notes of citrus blossom, white peach, lemon zest and mineral. It has great volume and intensity, building through the palate and culminating in a huge puff of chalk on the strict and super-long finish. It is so long with great drive and a hint of citrus rind bitterness at the end. Brilliant!

We finished with an ’11 from the cellar

2011 Domaine Roulot Meursault Les Meix Chavaux: A nose of almond butter and rockmelon. It is richly fruited in the mouth with tangy acid drive. It has nice volume, great persistence and is in a really good spot right now.

Thanks for the notes! Should make for a fascinating comparison, and test of the notions of vine age vs. clones vs. terroir.

Helpful notes Jeremy. Did you also taste at PYCM and H. Boillot? Love to get your notes on the wines from those producers and also your general impression of the 2017 vintage. I’m quite hopeful for 2017; in my very limited tastings my takeaway is that the wines have a lovely balance between ripeness, extract, tension and acidity. Would love to hear your thoughts. Cheers.

Thanks Larry.

Tasted with Caroline Morey and Pierre-Yves Colin and will get notes up shortly. Didn’t taste H. Boillot '17’s but had a smattering of J.M Boillot that I enjoyed immensely (imported some for our clients).

I like 2017 very much for whites. It is a ripe vintage but the wines are very balanced in general and there is good underlying minerality. I’m hosting Monday Table next week where we will look at 15xhigh-end '17 whites blind, so keep your eye out for notes some time next week.

Cheers
Jeremy