TN: 2013 Felettig Chambolle-Musigny VV

lovely wine with super density and a satiny mouthfeel, fills the mouth with layered dark berry flavors and ripe tannin. Would love to taste this in a decade. Really good wine.

Thanks for your fine note Alan.


Stay healthy and happy early Thanksgiving.

I don’t have much experience with Felettig. Where would you put them on the Chambolle spectrum, from light/pretty to dark/concentrated?

It’s nice to see a good note for 2013, a vintage that is worrying me right now. Hopefully it’s just in an awkward spot.

I’ve had a fair amount of Felettig recently, and I think the style has evolved a bit; I’d say the 17s are very similar in a good way to Mugneret-Gibourg. I think the 14s still have a fair amount of reduction and are more dense and slightly blockier wines. The wines have only been getting better - I bought quite a few of the 2017s.

This was Gilbert’s breakout vintage. His Combettes is especially good. 2019 is his best vintage to date, though, I’m convinced.

He went fully organic this year, too.

Will post on this subject next week if you’d be interested!

I bought a fair amount of Combettes in 2014. I am waiting on that one. It is nice but seems to really need time.

Not Greg, but please do post, William,
I own a fair amount from just before '13 and the few I have opened, I have liked, such as the 2011 Vosne-Romanée
and Chambolle, also villages. Perhaps a touch rustic, but I did not find them heavy and thought they had good typicity.

Thanks for the compelling note, Alan, makes me want to open one of mine soon.

I bought a few bottles of wine from Felettig several years ago - 2009s and 2010s. I had a 2009 CM Combottes a few years ago and it seemed very promising but very young.

Thanks for the notes everyone. I am interested in learning more about this producer.

I am interested. Thanks.

You know I’m interested:). Is it going to be Leroy lite?

this is my first bottle from Felettig so I’d rather not opine. I don’t know enough though that usually doesn’t stop me.

Okay, I have an idle moment at LHR, awaiting my flight back to the USA, so here goes…

Gilbert has always been a diligent farmer, and over the years has supplied a bit of fruit to the likes of Dujac Fils et Père etc, though he now vinifies and bottles almost all of his own production (I buy a bit of fruit from him to produce two barrels of Chambolle every year—all fully disclosed in TWA—so I am quite familiar with his farming). This year, he went fully organic and I’m sure there will be other interesting initiatives in the vineyards in the years to come.

In terms of vinification, I described 2013 as his “breakthrough” vintage, and that’s all the more impressive in that it was a challenging vintage. Since then, Gilbert has been refining his cooperage choices (moving from quite a bit of Rémond towards more and more François Frères) and figuring out how much whole cluster works for his wines (more and more dialing in on a very classic 30%, having used a lot in the frost-impacted 2016 vintage). Since 2019, he’s using a vertical press which makes for cleaner lees and finer tannins. And with the 2019s, he’s pushing the élevage a bit longer than in the past (he wasn’t yet sure when he’d bottle them when I visited last week). All in all, I’d say the tendency is toward greater finesse, all the while retaining plenty of concentration and structure. Gilbert started working at the domaine in his teens in the 1970s, and what’s impressive is that he is still hungry to improve every year. It’s an interesting tasting for me, because we can really exchange quite frankly about the wines, barrels, picking dates, stems etc. My impression is that his 2019s (which I tasted twice from barrel) are his best to date, the Chambolle, Vosne and Beaune wines especially (the Corton is a bit of a monster!).

Thanks William!

Thank you, William, for the interesting and helpful notes!

How do you feel about his 2016 and 2018? Just got an offer, wondering how deep to go.

16 was very nice - frost vintage, so atypically large percentages of whole bunch, and a cooler season so fresher profile to the wines. 2018s are richer and more muscular. Depends what you prefer really.