Joseph Roty Gevrey Chambertin 2016

Description

Joseph Roty made wines his own way and was unimpressed by changing fashion. He frequently described his colleagues on the Côte de Nuits as blaguers (jokers) who followed fads, used chemical fertilizers, chose the wrong clones and overcropped their vines—and, he maintained, were often dishonest about their yields, their use of filtration and the age of their vines. He took a dim view of wines made by his neighbors via hot, short fermentations, which he believed could bring an astringency in years when the stems were less ripe. In those vintages, he asserted, they used a lot of new oak to mask the underripe grape skins. Along with his legacy of very old vines and farming the vines with a horse, Joseph’s paternal grandfather Charles Roty also passed along his practice of working in the vineyards and in the winery according to the lunar cycle. But the “Roty style” really began with Joseph and his wife Françoise. For starters, Roty immediately set out to increase estate-bottling of the family’s production. When the winery’s horse died a few years after Joseph took over the domaine, he replaced it with a new high-clearance tractor that was ideal for his narrow vine rows. He was never a believer in vinifying with whole clusters, and he nearly always destemmed his Charmes-Chambertin. – Importer