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.

Fragile old vines planted in 1964 produce a wine of surprising structure from this site. The concentration of fruit, the frame of tannins, and the long drive on the back-palate are perhaps more in line with the traditional image of Nuits-St-Georges than Axelle’s Vallerots cuvées. This quintessential Nuits cuvée has superb length, with some welcome Nuits-St-Georges structure giving it power and presence.

This is a flagship wine of the domaine, and at two hectares represents around a third of production. It’s an incredibly steep site just above Les Vaucrains which had been abandoned since the phylloxera crisis until Bertrand terraced and planted it in 2001. There is slightly darker, fuller fruit than that found in the 2019, but with the brightness of acidity it feels balanced and very complete, unforced and charming.

The domaine has an impressive 10 hectares in their home village of Marsannay. They bottle five separate cuvées, including the wonderful Grasses Têtes, which sits at the southern end of the commune, on the slope that rises up behind the village. Its quirky name (meaning “fat heads”) refers to the large rocks that show through the surface of the clay soil. It is typically the most structured and powerful of the Clair Marsannays, with the greatest tannic charge, recalling Gevrey-Chambertin. The 2022 has a fragrant and salty dynamism. This is quintessential Marsannay, and quintessential Clair, and a top contender for promotion to premier cru status.

The domaine has an impressive 10 hectares in their home village of Marsannay. They bottle five separate cuvées, including the wonderful Grasses Têtes, which sits at the southern end of the commune, on the slope that rises up behind the village. Its quirky name (meaning “fat heads”) refers to the large rocks that show through the surface of the clay soil. It is typically the most structured and powerful of the Clair Marsannays, with the greatest tannic charge, recalling Gevrey-Chambertin. The 2022 has a fragrant and salty dynamism. This is quintessential Marsannay, and quintessential Clair, and a top contender for promotion to premier cru status.

This remarkable village lieu-dit sits directly above Clos de Tart, Clos des Lambrays, and Bonnes Mares, and the Clair parcel is an extension of their lauded Bonnes Mares plot. It’s hard to believe this isn’t a premier cru, really. Up here there is virtually no top soil at all, and the vines plunge straight into the limestone bedrock. The wine has abundant blackberry and wild strawberry aromas, tightly-wound tannins, and a fragrant energy.

This is a Bonnes Mares of distinction: it is the only part of the vineyard to fall within Morey-Saint-Denis (the rest is in Chambolle-Musigny). It is muscular, yet tender, with a deep and concentrated core. There is an unbelievable length on display here, with a finish that fans out across the palate.

Bruno Clair is one of only five producers of this revered premier cru, that many regard as equal to the Gevrey grands crus. The Clairs refer to it as ‘the Prince of Gevrey’. It is steep by Burgundian standards, with clay-rich soil. A dramatic storm in June hit the Combe de Lavaux meaning yields were once again down here in 2022, bucking the general trend. But what they did make shows a suave power, and a cool, controlled, elegance.

This precious site was Bruno’s father’s favourite, and is now his son Arthur’s favourite too. It’s planted with the oldest vines of the domaine, which date back to 1902. Its east-facing amphitheatre-like form catches the sun’s rays, and the wine it produces is sappy, concentrated and complexly textured. There’s a clear density from the old vine fruit, and the energy of the vintage. Sumptuous, spiced, and poised.

This clos is a monopole of the domaine found right at the centre point of Gevrey, next to Ruchottes-Chambertin. It always has lots of millerandages (small berries) and so the wine has an intense concentration and exquisite finesse. It’s all red-fruited power and mineral length, typical of senior Gevrey terroirs.

Where the Bonnes Mares is muscular and persuasive, this is fragrant and fine, with a compelling thread of crystalline red fruit reaching to an astonishing finish. Clos de Bèze is a slightly steeper and warmer site than Chambertin next door, and the potential heights of complexity and concentration it can produce are remarkable. Most of the vines were planted in 1912, with the rest in the 1970s - affectionately still referred to as the young vines. This will be a tour de force with some years in bottle.

Dujac are on form in this grand cru, which is opulent and refined, with a huge depth of flavour and complex length.

Malconsorts is considered by many as equal in quality, and certainly as in-demand, as most grands crus, and you’ll be hard pushed to find a finer example than Dujac’s.

Pure, incredibly densely concentrated with crystalline fruit, and silky, satin-like tannins. This is wonderfully long, and, although a mere village wine, carries the calibre of its domaine on full display.

Combottes sits on the border of Morey and Gevrey, surrounded on all sides by grands crus. There are many theories as to why this isn’t a grand cru itself, most of which centre on the political angle (a popular theory is that because it is mostly shared amongst growers from Morey, the authorities in Gevrey enjoyed snubbing it). Nevertheless, it is a wonderful wine, with extraordinary ageing potential, and one of the finest premiers crus in the Côte de Nuits.

Domaine Duroché can do no wrong these days. Everything Pierre Duroché touches turns to gold, from his village wine right up to his grands crus. This is a fantastic entry point to one of the most in-demand names in the region.

This is fast becoming one of Burgundy’s most sought-after wines. The vineyard was planted in 1920, and you can feel the power of the old vines in the glass. It is intense and opulent, with plenty of spice on the nose. The palate is impeccably balanced, with vibrant acidity alongside an impressive mouthfeel. This is powerful, yet retains poise and elegance. It deserves plenty of time in the bottle.

Pierre owns the last parcel of Latricières before Chambertin begins, and while attention is usually focused on his Clos de Bèze, this is quickly becoming as in demand. It is suave, dark, and cool: somehow opulent and restrained at the same time.

Pierre has just 0.4 hectares in Charmes-Chambertin, which is divided into five separate parcels, two of which are on the border with Griotte-Chambertin, on more stony soils. The wine is always tightly coiled, with some noble austerity in its youth.

Duroché owns a sizable 1.2 hectare parcel of this premier cru, and it is arguably the cuvée that best defines the estate. There’s a coolness here, with dancing tannins and incredible purity. Lavaut balances a freshness, due to its position at the base of the Combe, with an opulence of fruit from the vineyard’s south facing aspect.

Les Cazetiers is situated right alongside Clos Saint-Jacques on the Combe de Lavaux. Its easterly exposure combined with cool, elevated position make for outstanding freshness in the wines. This is serious yet sensual in 2022. Lovely rose petal and Maraschino cherry notes on the nose, and fresh, intense palate: voluminous, creamy density, with velvety tannins.

This special cuvée comes from the oldest vines in Faiveley’s Clos de Bèze holding, and was first produced in 2011. The name is an homage to the family’s connection with the artist, Rodin, and the cuvée is only ever produced in tiny quantities. Powerful, deep, and dramatic. This will reward the patient.

Faiveley are the largest landowner in this fêted corner of Chambertin, with three parcels to their name. It is one of the consistently most complex wines in their range, and offers staggering ageing potential. In 2022, aromas of rose petal and cranberries combine, leading to gorgeously silky tannins, a fresh line of acidity driving through to a spicy finish.

This super monopole vineyard in the Côte Chalonnaise village of Mercurey is one of the bargains of Burgundy. It’s lively and juicy, with the freshness of the vintage serving it well. There is textural, red berry-fruited, with supple tannins and a gourmand finish.

Latricières always feels a little cooler than Charmes-Chambertin, its neighbouring Grand Cru. A gentle but cool breeze draws down the valley, keeping freshness and minerality in the grapes. The 2022 exudes freshly-sliced red fruit, scents of raspberry and red plum. There is a fleshy weight in the mid-palate but also a delicious bite to the fruit on the finish. A very accomplished example of the vintage.