It’s no surprise to WRO readers that I think Maison Louis Jadot is one of Burgundy’s top producers. (Full disclosure: we named our late, beloved standard poodle, “Jadot”). I’ve tasted with Jacques Lardière in the Jadot cellars once or twice a year for the last 10 years and in New York or Boston when he makes his annual pilgrimage to the United States. He has been exceptionally generous with his time, with tastings in their cellars typically lasting hours at a time.
I’ve tasted with Jacques chez Jadot at all times of the year and at all stages of the wine’s evolution. We’ve tasted barely fermented juice during harvest, while wines are going through malolactic fermentation and just after the wines have been racked. We will often taste the same wine from several barrels so he can demonstrate the barrel-to-barrel variability. During these times he has been extremely open about his methods and techniques. Over the years he’s taught me much about Burgundy in general and his philosophy in particular.
Although W. Blake Gray, my colleague at WRO, reported that Lardière said, “. . . we do exactly the same thing every year for all the wines,” that is not my understanding from my numerous tastings with him.
It certainly is Lardière’s philosophy to let the vintage express itself. But that does not mean that he treats the wines the same. In 1996, Jadot inaugurated a new winery whose major advance was the installation of fermenting vats of different sizes so Lardière could keep the wines separate throughout fermentation and aging. Today’s Jadot boasts of multiple kinds of vats for fermentation, open wood, open stainless steel, closed stainless steel. You get the picture.
Work in the vineyards varies. For example, some are farmed biodynamically, some are not. Sometimes they perform a green harvest, sometimes not. Some of the grapes are hand harvested, others by machine. You get the idea.
In the winery, things are not formulaic.
Although they usually destem the grapes prior to maceration, when quantities from a particular vineyard are small, Lardière does not.
Lardière is compulsive about keeping the various wines separate. There are, for example, four or five bottlings of Beaune Theurons depending on the origin of the grapes: the personal holdings of the Gagey family who have run the house for decades (Domaine André Gagey), Louis Jadot’s vineyards (Domaine Louis Jadot), the vineyards owned by the heirs of Louis Jadot (Héritiers Louis Jadot), or grapes purchased from other growers. These wines are not treated the same nor do they taste the same. (To eliminate confusion, however, only one of these bottlings is sold in the United States).
The duration of maceration and fermentation is also variable for the wines depending on the health of the fruit.
The amount of wood aging depends on the individual wines. Village wines receive less oak aging, whereas the wine from Premier and Grand Cru vineyards receives more. Since Jadot owns its own cooperage, they have complete control over the type of oak and can fine-tune the toast of the barrels, which also varies.
When the individual wines are bottled varies vintage to vintage. In 2009, for example, they opted to bottle somewhat sooner than usual to capture the core of fruit the vintage delivered.
I cannot reconcile what Gray reported that Lardière told him and what I’ve learned from Jacques over the years. Maybe something was lost in translation.
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