Les Fichots Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru Pinot Noir

My favorite Pernand 1er Cru. Classic nose of dark cherry fruit, brambly berry fruit, wild mint, spearmint, desiccated leaves, sous bois and citrus rind. Very complex and pure. So Fichots. Grippy, gritty, silky and dense with dark cherry fruit and forest floor inner mouth aromas and silky but substantial tannins. Needs air. Wonderful. As this airs the tannins smooth out and the energy increases as does the length.

Nose is brambly, bright and dark cherries. Lovely moss tones. Very pretty and in the Girard style but also has some 15 showing. Palate is elegant and ripe with great balance. A bit of that odd, high acid, weird tannin thing 15 reds can have. Needs air but a nice effort in a very hard vintage for red and white. Whites are aging away from 15 and reds are aging into it more. How odd.

My last bottle and age your Fichots! Please! This is glorious. 19 is close to 12 in spirit I think. What a nose. Ebullient, expressive and pure. Black raspberry and black cherry with a spicey earthy note. Floral and underbrush but clear. Just gorgeous and will only get better with air. Air and Fichots work well together. Ahh, the classic Fichots structure. Stoney, straight and long. Always needs an hour to open at any age but the length, balance and wow that length are there. Incredible fruit amplitude and volume. Sappy and pure. Wonderful finesse has arrived after some air. Just a beautiful wine and one of the best values of red burgundy I’ve ever encountered. It’s great every year but some years like 12/19 are better than other. Also 14.

Raspberries, black cherries, spice, and a light hint of vanilla. Became very elegant over a few hours. Perfect Saturday treat!!

Classic Fichots nose. Dark fruits, earthy and sinewy. Also watermelon and strawberry. Feral and wild with major sous bois. Spice and saline. So much terroir. Awesome. Dark, juicy and structured with ripe, substantial and velvety tannins. Sappy and wild palate that needs 3-4 hours to come together but a super promising young Fichots. As it airs it gets more fleshy and defined. More later.

Darker more complex nose than the Vergelesses. So good. Big ripe mid season cherry, so much sinewy earthy diet, spice and it smells more structured and concentrated. So complex. Just a symphony of Pernand. Complex and structured and more obviously young than the Les Vergelesses. So sappy and pure with a dark and bright cherry fruit profile at the same time. Long, sinewy, feral, spicey and complex. Amazing purity, depth, structure and concentration. So deep. This will age gorgeously for the next 10-15 years.

Tightly-wound and still young. Lots of cranberry/pomegranate fruit in the nose. There’s also lots of P-V powdered limestone minerality. It’s beautifully balanced. Soft, nice acids. This will age slowly and improve over the next several years. It’s not the sultry, musky style of Burg, but is really well done in its nervous style.

Love this cuvee. Darker nose than the Les Vergelesses. Tree bark, moss, mid season cherries. Huge minerals. Almost a limestone feeling. Wild apples. Wet earth. Savory. Sweet. Feral and wild. Just stunning. Even some black cherry after some air. Just awesome. Big huge red and black cherry fruit. Lovely electric almost Rieslingesque limestone minerality. Explosive and deep with awesome purity and earthy sweetness. Terrific delineation of flavor and so much material yet so light and delicate even. Only in Burgundy. Super complex and ripe and big tannins suggest even more aging if one desires.

Bright, buoyant nose. Big 15 sunshine and sappy macerated late season cherries, earth, forest floor, cherry cough syrup. Ripe. Palate is ripe with great acidity and cut. Very accessible for this cuvee which usually needs years. Clean, fresh and very pure with superb balance. Long finish with some velvety tannins. Great now but will improve tremendously in the next 2-5 years and hang on for 10 more.

Gorgeous pure almost fourrier like nose. Red fruits, cherries, herbal, sweet, mineral, damp flowers, dank and feral. Palate is classic Fichots. Dense, structured and pure with big tannins and structure. Needs 2 hours or 2-3 more years. Long. Impressive extract and sap. Very pure and dense yet so silky. Excellent.