2023 Pouilly Fuisse Tete de Cru Perrieres

The 2023 Pouilly-Fuissé Les Perrières ler Cru, which is midway through its barrel maturation and due to be racked just after my visit, has a well-defined and focused bouquet. The palate is well-balanced and already possesses a sense of harmony. It seems to have a little more "bite" than the 2022, and I look forward to tasting the finished wine next year. Last year, I was winemaker Clément Robinet’s first visit on his first day at the winery, replacing Audrey Braccini, who joined her partner, the incumbent winemaker at Clos Rougeard. So, Braccini is responsible for the 2022s that I tasted here. “We started harvest on August 22, the earliest ever at the Domaine,” he explains. “We hired 60 pickers to harvest as quickly as possible, the single vineyard picked in the mornings, and the afternoon fruit cooled in a fridge and pressed in the evening. Yields were around 45hl/ha. All wines age for 16 to 18 months, 10-11 in barrels (25% new oak) and the rest in stainless steel. We keep all the lees, so the wine continues to evolve to impart more tension. We did a partial malolactic fermentation, 60-80%, to enhance the freshness, whereas in 2021, it was 100%. I arrived in June last year, so I just did the end of the élevage and the bottling.” These are excellent wines, I would argue, better than the Mâconnais cuvées released by their owner, Louis Jadot, who assiduously treats the Domaine as a separate entity. I speculated whether Robinet will change anything at Ferret, but it looks like it is business as usual. “I did a longer press in 2023 as we had a lot of juice. The idea was to reduce the mixing during the pressing to limit the potassium and keep acidity.”

A little fuller yellow and showing the oak a bit more. Then superb refinement on the palate, very detailed stony notes, a little lime wash, verbena even, less flesh, more sophistication than Clos de Jeanne. I love what it leaves in the mouth.