Thibault Liger-Belair was having a new handrail fitted when I pulled up at his winery in Nuits Saint-Georges to make the descent down to his cellar slightly less perilous. However, that is not the only construction work going on here. “We will have a new cellar in Nuits Saint-Georges. It is going to be installed with new 35-hectolitre foudres, which I have been thinking about for a long time. They come from the forest between Burgundy and Champagne. The new cellar was finished in September and is 1600m2 with natural light and good system for recycling air. Finally everything will be under the same roof because at the moment we work from different buildings.” I am sure this new investment is going to make a huge difference to Thibault and his team and the use of foudres is intriguing (something growing in popularity in Burgundy). What about the vintage at hand? “The flowering was over 10 days and I felt there was a big difference between say Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits Saint-Georges in terms of maturity. We started harvesting on 7 September, stopping and starting so that there were 5 days of picking in the end. When we first arrived in the vineyard we found that the fruit was not ripe.” It was an interesting array of 2015s from Thibault. He is certainly a winemaker who is constantly thinking about his modus operandi, not averse to changing formulas and trying new things, whether it is adjusting the level of stem addition (often creating a mille-feuille of stem and de-stemmed fruit), the meticulous sourcing of wood for his barrels, branching out into Beaujolais and so forth. I often come away with the impression that Thibault is a young winemaker finding his own path and I suspect that when he does move lock, stock and foudres into his new winery, things will become clear. So occasionally there are crus that don't quite work, for example, the Charmes-Chambertin that seemed at odds with the new oak. Other times they are an absolute joy, not least his parcel of Nuits Saint-Georges Les Saint-Georges and a superb Clos Vougeot. Unfortunately the Richebourg showed a stubborn reduction and even though I afforded it 10-15 minutes, it refused to budge an inch! Anyway, I look forward to re-tasting it later, hopefully within Thibault's new winery.