Domaine des Aubuisières, 2016 Update
I was pleased to be able to stop off to taste with Bernard Fouquet, proprietor of Domaine des Aubuisières, one of leading domaines in the Vouvray appellation, earlier this year. Bernard always offers a very frank view of the most recent vintage, and it is interesting to hear of his experiences which often provide a fascinating contrast to the words of other Vouvray vignerons.
The 2015 vintage is a case in point. This year was blessed with a very benevolent growing season judging by those wines I have tasted thus far. Fruit ripeness is excellent, and for reds it is an extraordinarily promising vintage. For white, the only concern is the potential for lower acidity and higher alcohol in some wines. This makes a change from other recent vintages, many of which have been problematic.
Bernard (pictured above) described his experiences in 2015.
“I had a heterogeneous maturity because of the varied soil types, and I had to do a lot of green harvesting. I discarded perhaps half of the grapes from the vines. After the hail of 2013 the vines were eager to make up for this, and even after 2014 they still had a lot of reserve. There was always the potential for a big harvest in 2015, but I controlled the yields. On Le Marigny I picked 25 hl/ha, and in Le Petit Clos 29 hl/ha, but it could so easily have been more than 60 hl/ha”.
I asked Bernard for more detail of his harvest.
Please log in to continue reading:“It was superb, and not complicated. There was just a little rain at the end of picking. It was much easier than 2014, which was complicated by rain which came just before we began picking. I picked Le Petit Clos, which tends to be an early-ripening terroir, and Le Marigny in two tries in order to maximise quality”.