Côte de Nuits 2022

This is an exceptionally pretty Chambolle-Musigny, offering up wild strawberry and blueberry notes. If you like the sweet aromatic fruit of 100% whole-bunch winemaking, this is the wine you’re looking for. Fine, silky tannins are extremely well-expressed on the poised finish.

Hautes-Côtes de Nuits might be the most humble appellation in Aurélien’s portfolio, but this wine is also his flagship, and we think, one of his best. It offers outstanding value for money. It smells like a basket of freshly picked wild strawberries, with a light dusting of cinnamon sugar. The whole-bunch vinification is an excellent match for the terroir, whose cool freshness gives the wine structure. This will drink well from early on.

Cyprien makes two Bourgognes, and this is the one that comes from the domaine’s single parcel which lies just beyond the village boundary of Gevrey Chambertin, but a stone’s throw from the village’s grands crus. It is a fairly serious Bourgogne, with an expressive, chewy core to it, offering up the density of Gevrey, with the open fruit to drink well from early on.

This comes from various parcels the domaine owns around the village, mostly located on the Morey side of the village. It shows a certain austerity, mingled with Chambolle’s signature texture: silky, dense, and refined.

This is one of the parcels that Cyprien and his team farm organically all year round and harvest themselves, under the négociant label. It is an excellent village lieu-dit at the southern end of Vosne, which a number of growers choose to bottle separately. It shows lots of energy and power, with a bright length, with plenty in reserve.

This vineyard is at the north end of the village, on the border with grand cru, Mazoyères-Chambertin. The soils are high in limestone, and produce a wine that is rich in dark wild berries and clove spice, with a lean and persistent freshness.

Bonnes Mares is a magnificent vineyard, and makes a compelling and beautiful wine in 2022 in Cyprien Arlaud’s hands. It’s got power and drive, also control and depth. This should age wonderfully well.

This is a clear stand-out in the Arlaud cellar. It’s the most dramatic wine in the line up, outpacing the other grand cru with its grip and swagger. A truly great Clos de la Roche.

This comes from the very highest point of Mazoyères-Chambertin, which can also be labelled as Charmes-Chambertin. It has sensational volume with a crystalline purity driving through the finish.

This vineyard sits just below Clos St Denis, in the heart of the village, and offers up a deep and textured expression of Morey St Denis. It is delicate, with creamy red fruit leading the wine. WHile not particularly intense, it offers up a balanced length of great distinction. With some time in bottle to take on a little more weight and precision, and this could be the dark horse of the stable.

This always delivers huge complexity from the start. It is so deep, and with such a sustained finish you’ll be thinking about it long after tasting.

This can often have the broadest shoulders of the Rousseau grands crus, and is certainly one that requires some serious ageing.

Rousseau’s Gevrey might be their least grand cuvée, but it remains nevertheless one of the most sought-after wines, and a window onto their supreme style which can be drunk a little earlier than their premiers and grands crus.

Voluminous and with profound length, this is an exquisite wine from the Rousseau cellar, with layers that build up in a subtle but melodic crescendo.

Lavaux St Jacques is a lovely vineyard on the Combe de Lavaux which enjoys the cooling influence of the cold air drawn down the valley. The wine is chiselled and precise.

The Ruchottes always abounds with small red berry fruit, making it a lively and vibrant grand cru. It nevertheless has the gravitas of its grand cru status, and will evolved for many years in bottle.

Only five domaines own Clos St Jacques, and Rousseau’s wine is frequently the pinnacle. This shows the complexity, suave power, and finesse of a grand cru, with incredible freshness.

2022 is the first proper vintage of Fixin Blanc at Amélie’s domaine. It comes from young vines, and has made a deliciously quenching and refreshing wine. Up-front, pithy, and delicious.

With Richebourg and Cros Parantoux as neighbours, you can expect great things from this vineyard. Amélie has five separate plots across half a hectare (although she gives some of the production back to her aunt, so there is never ever enough to meet demand). The site is so steep and inaccessible that no tractors can reach it, and all work is done by horse or hand. The 2022 has 50% whole-bunch, which helps give the already exceptionally concentrated fruit some lift and flow. She’s worked hard on this cuvée, which could tend towards reduction. Switching to concrete tanks for fermentation has helped, and the potential of quality here is already easy to see tasting from barrel. So persistent, with Vosne’s powerful, velvet-like tannins.

Fixin doesn’t have any grand crus, but in Amélie’s eyes, this is the greatest site in the village. It has very shallow soils, and the vines, now aged 30-80 years old, dig deep. 50% whole-bunch brings a floral, spiced fruit. Defined, characterful, and the work of a winemaker at the top of her game.

If Les Crais is her father’s cuvée, then this is Amélie’s. It used to go into their village blend, but Amélie has been bottling it separately since 2013. The vines are now over 70 years old, and its mid-slope position near the premiers crus is excellent. A bold 50% whole-bunch here is executed with deft skill: the wine is fragrant and dancing, with agile freshness and sweet energy.

Les Crais is a flagship wine at Amélie’s estate, having been bottled separately from the other village parcels since her father’s tenure. The one-hectare vineyard sits right in the heart of the appellation, just below the village itself. Its alluvial soils are well-draining, and the parcel is always one of the first picked. In 2022 Amélie has captured the bright fruit purity of the vintage in a wine whose fragrant scent is bursting with strawberries and spice. 30% whole-bunch gives it lift and zip. This is Fixin at its best.

This parcel in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, right next to Axelle’s cellar, sits at 450 metres altitude. The isolated parcel is naturally low yielding anyway, and, she says, naturally pruned by the local deer. As a result, it's an Aligoté with the yield of a grand cru, Axelle laments in jest. The vines are around 50 years old and around 10% of the vineyard is an old Burgundian variety, Melon de Bourgogne, more commonly found in Muscadet these days. The wine is energetic and delicious, brimming with apples and apricots, and a lacy, fine texture.

In Aux Allots we find the domaine’s oldest vines, though how old precisely is unknown. The family bought the vineyard which sits on the Vosne-Romaéee side of the village in 1969. It had been planted long before then, although the exact date has been lost to history. This wine has an enthralling depth of berry fruit, with a minty lift on the nose, and just a hint of licorice adding a further dimension. Textural and complex, this is an outstanding Nuits-St-Georges.