Category Archives: Wine

Will L’If Become the Le Pin of St. Emilion: Jacques Thienpont Strikes Again?

Posted on by
4

When Jacques Thienpont started Le Pin in 1979, he had no idea it was going to become one of the most famous—and at one time the most expensive—wine of Pomerol. Owned by the Laubie family since 1924, this tiny vineyard of 1.2 ha was located between Vieux Chateau Certan (also owned by the Thienpont family) and Trotanoy (one of Moueix’s leading properties). The Thienponts knew it was special terroir, and the original plan was to buy it to add to Vieux Chateau Certan, but the family did not want to pay the price, so Jacques bought it himself, paying a million francs for it (equivalent to 150,000 euros or $200,000).

The small scale of production, high price, character of 100% Merlot, and concentrated character of the wine led it to be grouped with the garage wines, although this has never really been an appropriate description, since it comes from prime terroir, and winemaking does not use any extreme methods. Subsequently some more small plots, contiguous with the original holding, were added to bring the total size up to 2.7 ha. There is no second wine at Le Pin, but there is another label called Trilogie, which is a blend across three successive vintages.LePin-original

The original house at Le Pin.

LepinS

The new winery

The property takes its name from the massive pine tree that stands just in front of the winery. Jacques now seems to be repeating history with the recent purchase of a property in St. Emilion, originally Chateau Haut-Plantey, but now renamed L’If (the French for yew tree).

My visit to Le Pin this week started out at the new winery, a contemporary jewel that replaced the old building in 2012, more than thirty years after the original purchase. Then we visited L’If, where the building is pretty dilapidated, but modern equipment has been installed inside. The old large fermentation tanks have been replaced with a variety of tanks to allow fermentation of individual plots. The original purchase included 5 ha in single block around the building, and another 2 ha close by; another hectare has since been added, bringing the total to 8 ha. This is good terroir, a nice slope just under Chateau Troplong Mondot, with a view across to the church at St. Emilion. There’s lots of limestone, which will be planted with Cabernet Franc; Merlot will be retained or planted on the plots with more clay. “It’s good terroir, but we will have to start from scratch, because they used weed killer,” Jacques says.

Almost half of the property has been pulled out for replanting. 1 ha is about to be replanted, and another 2 ha will be uprooted shortly; the land will be left fallow for four years before replanting, and then it will be three years till the first grapes are ready to use, so for the next 7 years production will be down. Cabernet Sauvignon has been removed—this is not a good spot for it, says Cyrille Thienpont, who is managing the property (and we will meet again at other Thienpont properties). Replanting will bring the varieties to a mix of about 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc. The big debate of the moment is how much to increase the density of planting from the present 6,500 vines/ha. With any significant increase come additional costs such as the need for different tractors that can handle narrower rows. I asked Jacques whether he was going to be frantically busy at harvest with two properties, but he explained that, even though the distance between the properties is only about five miles, L’If always harvests about three weeks later than Le Pin. “When we are putting wine into the barrels at Le Pin, we know it’s time to go and do the harvest at L’If,” he says. The first vintage to be released under the L’If name is 2011.

Coming from Pomerol, where there is no classification, Jacques does not intend L’If to become part of the St. Emilion classification. It may join Chateau Tertre Rôteboeuf as one of the most significant unclassified properties in the appellation. No one could have forecast Le Pin’s rise to fame, but it’s much easier to prophesy that we’re going to hear a good deal about L’If once the project really gets under way: Jacques hopes it will take less than the thirty years he’s been at Le Pin to fructify. Whether it will rise to the dizzy heights of challenging the top wines of the appellation remains to be seen.

 

St. Emilion Proprietors are Revolutionizing The Satellite Areas: Bargains from Castillon and Lalande de Pomerol

Posted on by
1

Today I visited three Premier Grand Cru Classés in St. Emilion: Chateaux Angelus, Beauséjour Bécot, and Canon la Gaffelière. The feel of the visits could not be more different, the wines all have their own distinct styles, but all three share the fact that they have expanded out of St. Emilion into neighboring areas, the first into Lalande de Pomerol to the west, the other two into Côtes de Castillon, just on the northeast border of St. Emilion.

Don’t be put off by the name. Côtes de Quelquechose almost always indicates an appellation of secondary importance to Quelquechose. “It would have been much better simply to call the appellation Castillon,” argues Stephan von Neipperg at Chateau Canon La Gaffelière. But the best part of the Côtes de Castillon, at St. Philippe d’Aiguille, has a limestone plateau that isn’t dissimilar to the far more famous limestone plateau where most of the Premier Grand Cru Classés of St. Emilion are located. Granted this doesn’t extend all over Côtes de Castillon—but the famous limestone plateau doesn’t extend over all St. Emilion either.

The cost of land in St. Emilion is now prohibitive: proprietors say that it’s but impossible to extend their vineyards. That’s part of the driving force for going out to Côtes de Castillon. Stephan von Neipperg was one of the first. “When I took over Chateau d’Aiguilhe in 1999,” he recollects, “we preserved 27 ha of old vines, and we replaced 15 ha of poor plantings of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The problem was economics, people went for quantity, but now they are recognizing the potential of the limestone plateau.” It’s no coincidence that the best wines in Castillon are made by people from St. Emilion: with a keen eye based on their experience in St. Emilion, they have bought vineyards on the best terroir. Juliette Bécot is extremely conscious of running a family estate—“it used to be very common, but now it’s more and more rare” —she says, but felt when she started out that she wanted to have her own voice, so established Joanin Bécot in Castillon in 2001.

Now famous for the renovation of Chateau Angelus, with its famous modern bell tower—both God Save the Queen and The Star Spangled Banner were played on the bells when we arrived, as I am British but came from New York—Hubert de Boüard consults for around 60 chateaux as well as running Angelus. He also created Fleur de Boüard, in Lalande de Pomerol, where in addition to the eponymous wine he produces a super-cuvée, Le Plus de Boüard, by selection of the best lots. Even from a single trie in the vineyard, some grapes are selected for Plus rather than Fleur. Plus spends 33 months maturing in oak—longer even than Angelus.

The common feature of all these—let’s call them the satellite wines—is that they are made with the same care and attention as the grand vin in St. Emilion, relying on similar expertise, but are available at lower price. Sound familiar? That’s the old argument for second wines. But whereas the second wines are always marked by that feeling that they weren’t good enough to make it into the grand vin, the satellite wines represent the best their terroir can produce. It’s an interesting trade off, that can pay off handsomely when the terroir is right.

The satellite wines come from different chateaus from their proprietors’ main chateaus, but show an interesting stylistic relationship with the grand chateaus.  Fleur de Bouard is the plushest; Chateau d’Aiguilhes is the most structured (Domaine de l’A, from oenologist Stéphane Derenoncourt, where I have a visit planned for later in the week, shows similar character but is more aggressive), Joanin Becot is the lightest and most approachable. In a blind tasting, they would be difficult to distinguish from St. Emilion at the level of the Grand Cru Classé. Perhaps Fleur de Boüard has more of the richness of Pomerol. These are all very good wines by any measure, and by and large, I prefer them to the second wines from the corresponding chateau in St. Emilion. The only thing these wines can’t compete on with St. Emilion is price.

Will people please stop trying to prove terroir exists. It’s more useful to look for gold at the end of the rainbow

Posted on by
3

Grow one plot of grapevines on the top of a hill in a really sunny, exposed, windy spot. Grow another plot at the bottom of the hill in a shady waterlogged spot. It is really not rocket science to understand that the grapes are likely to be quite different, as will wine made from them. That’s terroir, stupid.

Pushing the argument to these extremes doesn’t really resolve the issue of whether terroir effects exist that produce wines with subtle but consistent differences from adjacent vineyards where there is a little perceptible difference in growing conditions. Burgundians will argue, for example, that the adjacent vineyards of Cazetiers and Combes aux Moines in Gevrey Chambertin produce different wines. Faiveley have adjacent vineyards with vines of the same age, tended the same way. “The tractor doesn’t stop,” says Jérôme Flous of Maison Faiveley. But as I describe in my book, In Search of Pinot Noir, the wines are consistently different.

Well, yes, but maybe in such cases, producers, consciously or unconsciously, are treating the wines just a little bit differently to produce results that conform with their expectations for each vineyard. You might almost call it the Holy Grail of Terroir to demonstrate that the wines from different vineyards are intrinsically different. A group of scientists have just reported an attempt to prove this.

They took Pinot Noir berries from two vineyards managed by the same producer in Burgundy, one in Flagey-Echézeaux and one in Vosne Romanée. They don’t give exact locations, but the vineyards appear to be within a mile of one another. They report that soils types are similar in each vineyard: they don’t comment on the age of the vines or planting density, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt and assume that all extraneous parameters are the same.

They took two samples of 100 berries from each vineyard in 2010, 2011, 2012 and compared the berries and wine made from them by microvinification. Well, here’s the first problem. ONE HUNDRED BERRIES! How many berries do you suppose there are in a vineyard? Let’s try to estimate this. Suppose the vineyard is 1 ha and has 8,000 vines, each with 6 bunches, and each bunch has 50 grapes. I make that 2.5 million berries. I do not think you need to be an expert in statistics to see that 100 berries is not going to be representative of the vineyard. (For the more geekishly minded, you’d need a few hundred to achieve a 5% statistical significance level.)

I won’t go into the details of the analysis, which uses formidably complicated equipment, but comes down to the ability to measure small amounts of phenolic compounds. The authors conclude that  differences between vintages are more significant than differences between vineyards. This is not a surprise. But they go on to say they can find  differences between the vineyards, for both grapes and wine. This I do not believe. It’s definitely fair to say that when you compare the samples in one vintage, all four are different. But I’m not at all convinced that the two samples from each vineyard identify any distinct character. The results look  higgledy-piggledy, and the two samples from each vineyard seem just as different from one another as from the other vineyard. Misquoting Monty Python, Every berry is sacred, every berry is great.

I believe in terroir, but I don’t believe this study proves any more than that each sample of one hundred berries is a different from every other sample of one hundred berries. (Gives a whole new meaning to micro-cuvées.) Anyway, do we want to see a scientific basis established for terroir, wouldn’t that spoil the fun?

Terroir in New Zealand

Posted on by
Reply

Anyone who does not believe in terroir in the New World should have come to the Circle of Winewriters tasting of Central Otago Pinot Noirs, which compared different cuvées from Felton Road and Two Paddocks. “I remember when people were not convinced that regions of New Zealand show differences,” says Nigel Greening of Felton Road, “but now we see differences even between vineyards.”

The tasting displayed Central Otago’s versatility by starting with two whites. The Riesling came from Two Paddocks. “I planted Riesling because I wanted to make a white wine and Riesling is the only white grape that succeeds in Central Otago,” says Sam Neill of Two Paddocks. He allowed an exception for Felton Road’s Bannockburn Chardonnay, which followed. Central Otago whites show a tendency towards exotic fruits: Pinot Noir is more successful, in my opinion.

Central Otago is still going through the argument of whether the best wines come from assemblage from sites with complementary properties or from single vineyards. “We are working with two different approaches to Pinot,” says Sam Neill, describing the differences between the Last Chance single vineyard wine and the Two Paddocks bottling. “One comes from a tiny vineyard in a corner. The other is an estate wine, it’s a blend of our best lots.”

Two pairs of comparisons certainly made the point that there are real terroir differences here. From Two Paddocks came the First Paddock and Last Chance 2010 Pinot’s. First Paddock comes from Gibbston, more or less the central part of Central Otago (“always the most perfumed,” says Nigel Greening), while Last Chance comes from the most southerly vineyard in the Southern hemisphere, according to Sam Neil. “There are no grapevines between here and the penguins,” he says. The difference was somewhat like the rusticity of Pommard versus the sheer refinement of Volnay.

The difference between Felton Road’s Cornish Point and Calvert vineyards 2012 was equally striking. Both have wind-blow loess, but Calvert has heavier soil, whereas Cornish Point has a calcareous subsoil. There’s also difference in wind exposure. “This is a descent into hedonism,” says Nigel of the Cornish Point. I would actually describe the wines differently, as I find the Calvert to have more obvious weight and tannin, while the Cornish Point gives a refined impression almost of delicacy. Here is a sense of finesse that quite sets the lie to the notion of boisterous new world fruit.

My own preference is for those wines that display coolest climate impressions, Last Chance from Two Paddocks, and Cornish Point from Felton Road. “Central Otago is growing up. It was known for its fruit bomb wines but I don’t see that here; there’s expression of place in these wines,” says Nigel Greening.

The Perils of Tasting

Posted on by
Reply

A tasting to compare Côte Rôtie and Hermitage showed the perils of tasting. With wide variations of style, from wines in full blown modern international style to wines in restrained, if not austere, tradition, Côte Rôtie and Hermitage make a perfect illustration of the point.

Twice during the tasting a wine in a more restrained style followed a wine in a more powerful style. Both times, the second wine was, to say the least, under appreciated.

Guigal’s La Mouline 1998 showed pretty well. The primary black fruits and new oak are still pretty evident on the palate, but in very good balance, and it’s all beginning to integrate beautifully. But it’s still a few years off reaching the point at which it will complement a meal instead of providing its own assertive focus of attention.

The following wine, Clusel Roch’s Les Grandes Places, was subtle and understated in the usual style of the house. A sweet aromatic impression to the nose is almost perfumed, leading into a lively, elegant fresh palate. But as one of the lightest wines in the tasting, it elicited comments such as “water” or “dilute”. But I would bet that the comments would have been completely different if these two bottles had been tasted over a leisurely dinner instead of being sipped briefly in the context of the tasting.

At the end of the tasting a comparisons between two Guigal’s was equally informative. Even though it’s lightened up quite a bit, the Brune et Blonde from 1983 was surprisingly fuller and superficially richer than La Landonne. Most tasters preferred it, although La Landonne, probably now at its peak, showed ethereal layers of developing red fruit that were a lot less obvious (incidentally a striking demonstration of the ability of Northern Rhones to mature along a path similar to Bordeaux).

This all confirmed my belief in the need for a reality check: consume a bottle with dinner. The test is whether at the end you are tired of it or (in principle if not in practice) would like to have another bottle. That’s a much better test than a sip or gulp at a tasting.

Should you Decant Champagne?

Posted on by
2

“It all depends on what you want from your Champagne,” said the Anima Figure, my dinner companion, as we watched the Vintage 2004 being decanted at a tasting of Billecart-Salmon Champagne, held at The Modern in New York to celebrate François Roland Billecart’s first visit to the United States in 25 years. It was a lovely golden color, with a mousse on the surface of the decanter that dissipated fairly quickly. I know that some producers have recently been talking about decanting Champagne, but I confess that I have not myself seen Champagne decanted previously, so I was more than curious about the rationale on this particular occasion.

François Billecart had recommended that this vintage should be decanted around 45 minutes before serving, because it is still quite tight. As poured from the decanter, it was full of flavor, round and nutty with notes of brioche, and a deep texture. What about the bubbles? Well it was definitely a sparkling wine, but the fizz was not very aggressive. As served, it was a perfect match for the lobster in smoked vegetable broth.

The 2004 was the initial year of the new “Vintage” range. It’s two thirds Pinot Noir from Mareuil, with 20% vinified in barrique. When I first tasted it, at Billecart Salmon last summer, winemaker François Domi said, “This has brought ampleur. We changed the philosophy a bit. ” My recollection from that tasting was that the wine was rounded, but not oaky, with the effect of wood showing more in the creamier textured impression on the palate. The richness belies its Extra Brut status.

Based on my memory, this Champagne seemed pretty flavorful on opening, so I prevailed on the sommelier to pour me a fresh sample the next time a bottle was opened for decanting. The comparison was like night and day. Against the food, the bubbles seemed quite aggressive, hiding the flavors that were such a good match in the decanted sample. But at this point, more than hour after the initial decantation, the decanted sample was beginning to become a bit flat.

Later I had the opportunity to ask François Roland Billecart directly about the recommendation to decant. We agreed that you lose freshness but gain flavor by decanting, and the question is the best compromise. “It depends on the occasion,” François says. “If it’s for an aperitif, you should open the bottle and serve, but if it’s with dinner, decant before.” I continued to compare the two samples as they sat in the glass—they were served incidentally in wine glasses as opposed to flutes, another statement of purpose—and I felt that the ideal compromise between sparkle and flavor was reached somewhere between 30-45 minutes after opening.

Older wines at the tasting were also served in wine glasses. My favorite was the 1997 Blanc de Blancs, showing a lovely balance between developing fruits and nuts and truffles. With great depth on the finish, it outshone the Nicolas François Billecart 1997. The Elisabeth Salmon Rosé 1990 was most impressive, actually seeming less developed than the 1997 vintage Champagnes. Here is the full delicacy of rosé for which Billecart-Salmon is famous, with the subtle development of age.

I’m not sure I would go to the full extreme of decanting, but there is certainly a case to be made for opening a young vintage half an hour or so in advance to allow flavors to emerge that you would scarcely suspect if you guzzled it all immediately on opening.

Cru Bourgeois and Snobs

Posted on by
1

The annual tasting of the Union of Grand Crus of Bordeaux is always a crowded event in New York; in good vintages you positively have to elbow your way to the tasting tables. By contrast, this week’s tasting of Cru Bourgeois from the Médoc was somewhat sparsely attended. Chateaux showed two wines, mostly the 2009 and 2010, but there were some from 2008 and 2001 as well.

The difference in the atmospheres of the tastings might be taken as a metaphor for the difference in the wines themselves. The Grand Crus have become increasingly showy, luxury goods to knock your eyes out; but although they are technically better than ever before, full of ripe fruits with herbaceousness banished to history, sometimes you wonder whether they haven’t abandoned the traditional role of complementing food and aren’t, in fact, more likely to clash with it by bringing increasingly intense and concentrated flavors to the table. The Cru Bourgeois are simply not in that market: these are wines in a more traditional mold, designed to fit into the background against the food.

There is variation among the chateaux, to be sure, from wines that don’t quite make it because of lack of fruit flavor or variety to those that really typify the appellation. (Almost 200 of the 250 Cru Bourgeois are in the Médoc or Haut Médoc, leaving very few in the top communes, but those few can be good illustrations of appellation typicity.) Margaux is the appellation where I find the clearest expression of typicity, as seen in the smoothness of Paveil de Luze 2010, the typical perfume of Chateau d’Arsac 2010, and the restraint of Chateau Mongravey 2010. Chateau La Fleur Peyrabon 2009 stands out for the plush power of Pauillac, and Chateau Lilian Ladouys 2010 for expressing the slightly firmer quality of St Estèphe. Chateau Greysac 2010 captures a classic the playoff of fruits against structure in the Médoc, and Chateau Peyrabon 2010 seems more complete than the 2009 in reprising the style of Chateau Fleur Peyrabon, but at the level of Haut Médoc rather than Pauillac.

Whereas at Grand Cru tastings I usually prefer the 2009s to the 2010s, because the sheer fruit expression of the earlier vintage makes them so attractive, while the tannic reserve of 2010s makes then unready, at the Cru Bourgeois tasting I more often preferred the 2010s for their classic balance: many of the 2009s seemed to be trying too hard. If I have any generic criticism it is that there is sometimes a bit too much new oak for the fruit, but perhaps that will calm down in time. I did not generally like either the 2008s, which seem to be lacking in the flavor variety that should have begin to develop by now, or the 2011s, which seem to have too much acidity, often showing a citric edge.

My general reaction to this tastings—where around 50 of the Cru Bourgeois were represented—is that it’s a mistake to take the snobbish attitude of focusing exclusively on the grand crus. In terms of enjoyment in the shorter term, good match for food, and above all, reasonable price, the very best Cru Bourgeois have a lot to offer as dinner companions. Sometimes I wonder whether in fact they are more true to the spirit and tradition of Bordeaux than the Grand Crus are today.

Even the Bad Times are Good: Mastering Sauvignon Blanc in Sancerre and Bordeaux

Posted on by
Reply

Visiting France in the Spring of 2013, it seemed likely it would be a difficult year: it was cold everywhere and bud break was substantially delayed. Things never really caught up during the growing season. Harvest was small and just about achieved ripeness.

The previous year had been difficult in many places: conditions in the Loire and in Bordeaux were somewhat similar overall, with rain in July, dry conditions in August and September, and then rain again. Harvested earlier, the whites may have come off better than the reds in Bordeaux. At the eastern edge of the Loire, Sancerre and Pouilly Fume produced quite rich 2012s, better than 2011 where there had been problems with rot.

At tastings of the 2012 and 2013 vintages in Sancerre and Pessac-Léognan, I was struck by the comparison between the regions and the vintages. The whites from Pessac offer a fascinating contrast with Sancerre. They range from 100% Sauvignon Blanc, which should be more or less directly comparable, to wines with up to 50% Sémillon. The more common use of oak in Bordeaux tends to soften the wines; and where new oak is used the flavor profile is quite distinct at this young age. Where Sémillon is high there is more of a nutty texture.

But Sancerre is no longer as distinct from Bordeaux as it used to be: the consequence of greater ripeness is that there are Sancerres where the fruits point more to peaches and apricots than citrus. Today, effectively Bordeaux and Sancerre each show a range of styles, with quite a bit of overlap. The old image of grassy herbaceousness has definitely gone.

Bordeaux tends to be citrus driven when there is 100% (or close to it) Sauvignon, with only occasional notes of grassiness. With Semillon the fruits become rounder and more stone-driven. But Sancerre is achieving a similar effect through greater ripeness. The richest Sancerre might be confused with Bordeaux; and some of the 100% Sauvignons in Bordeaux might be confused with Sancerre.

There seems, at this stage anyway, to be more of a distinct difference between 2012 and 2013 in Pessac than in Sancerre. In Pessac, acidity is noticeably more pressing in 2013, with fruits tending towards lemon and grapefruit, whereas 2012 gives more of a stone fruit impression.

In Sancerre, I noticed a great difference as to whether the current wine on offer was the 2013 or 2012 vintage. The difference was not so much in the intrinsic quality of the vintages (barrel samples show that 2013 was actually quite successful in Sancerre) or even the fact that the 2012 had had a year’s extra aging. The real point was that producers whose current vintage was 2013 had bottled it after no more than about four months on the lees; whereas producers who had not yet bottled 2013 and whose current vintage was 2012 had usually given the wine around eight months on the lees. The extra complexity from longer exposure to the lees was really evident. Is this the major difference between the artisanal and commercial approach?

From Goats to Wine

Posted on by
3

When you visit Sancerre, the locals are quick to extol the match between the wine and the famous goats’ cheese, the Crottin de Chavignol. Staying just outside Sancerre in the village of Chavignol on a recent visit, I was struck by the fact that I could not actually see any goats. When I asked about this, the first answer was that the goats were on the tops of the hills. But when I went back and checked, the hills were covered with vines right up to the summits. Pressing the question further, my informants grinned and explained that vineyards have become so much more profitable that they have entirely displaced the goats. A striking demonstration of the change is the situation on the outskirts of Chavignol: the new Bourgeois winery stands where goats used to roam.

Goats1

Goats used to walk along the road leading out of Chavignol

Bourgeois1The Bourgeois winery is a splendid facility at the top of the hill

There’s more than one metaphor in this. The nearest goats are to be found in Cosne-sur-Loire, a few miles to the north – but the cheese hasn’t changed its name: it is still AOP Crottin de Chavignol. In fact, the AOP was granted in 1976, right around the time when the goats began to be displaced (they were pretty much gone by the eighties). That seems somehow indicative of the way INAO (the body in charge of the appellation system) operates.

A more significant point, perhaps is that the expansion of the vineyards has been matched by major change in the style of Sancerre. Sancerre used to be punishingly acid and positively herbaceous., Today it still usually has good acidity, but vegetal qualities go no further than grassiness. Fruits range from classic gooseberries to citrus, and even in many cases to stone fruits. Some wines are positively unctuous and exotic. This is partly because of the trend to later harvesting, aided by global warming, and partly due to the increase of concentration that has resulted from lower yields. Sancerre producers don’t admit to any direct influence from the success of New World Sauvignon Blanc, but they do concede that the modern consumer wants to see more upfront fruit in the wine.

When Sancerre was very acid and herbaceous, it was a perfect match for the sharp tang of the cheese. But is that still true: do wines where stone fruits are at least as evident as citrus really match the cheese? You can still get Sancerre in the classic idiom with enough of a grassy tang to match the cheese, but most have achieved a ripeness level that has substituted a new typicity. The perfect match has disappeared along with the goats.

Terroir and Grand Cru: a Vertical of Clos des Lambrays

Posted on by
Reply

A vertical tasting of Clos des Lambrays led me to wonder about the whole basis for classification in Burgundy. “Clos des Lambrays is very heterogeneous. There is 60 m difference in elevation between the top and bottom, the largest in any appellation except for Corton. There is strong diurnal variation with more cooling at the bottom, which is in a valley,” says winemaker Thierry Brouin, introducing a vertical tasting of Clos des Lambrays.

So why is Clos des Lambrays a single appellation if it’s so varied? Its 9 ha are the largest clos in Burgundy under (almost) single ownership; Domaine des Lambrays owns all except for a tiny plot owned by Taupenot-Merme at the bottom. The clos has three separate microclimates: a large block at the center (Les Larrets), 2 ha at the northern end (Les Bouchots), and 1 ha at the southeast corner (Meix Rentier). Lots of limestone produces elegance in the wine.

References to Cloux des Lambrey go back to 1365. It was divided between 74 owners after the Revolution, but reunited in 1868. Clos des Lambrays was classified as a premier cru because the owner of the time could not be bothered to submit the paperwork for submission as a grand cru in 1936. In any case, the estate was somewhat neglected until a change of ownership in 1979, when Thierry came as winemaker. It changed hands again in 1996, and now has just been purchased by LVMH.

Clos des Lambrays was promoted to Grand Cru in 1981. This is definitely a curiosity. Changes in appellation status are extremely rare, and bespeak political influence as well (hopefully) as a detailed reconsideration of terroir. Surely in Burgundy of all places we expect a Cru to describe a single type of terroir: how else to justify all those tiny, tiny appellations? The major exception is Clos Vougeot, well known to have been made a single grand cru because of the history of its enclosure into a single vineyard (although the monks in fact made multiple cuvées from its different parts: supposedly the bottom part was for the monks, the middle part for higher churchmen, and the top for princes). As everyone acknowledges that Clos Vougeot can range from communal level to grand cru level, why is Clos des Lambrays different?

“People often say to me, Thierry, why don’t you make a cuvée from the best two or three plots, but we don’t want to do that, Lambrays is not the best two or three cuvées, it is the assemblage of its different terroirs,” says Thierry. In fact, Thierry regards the sale to LVMH as potentially saving the clos from being seized by SAFER (a French government body that redistributes vineyards), in which case it very likely would have been broken up into many different plots, and the history lost once again. Fair enough: but this makes the point that the appellation is not in fact a construct of geography, or at least not entirely so, but in reality owes more to history. This is a dangerous precedent for consistency in the system.

In addition to Clos des Lambrays, Domaine des Lambrays also produces two other red cuvées: Les Loups comes from declassified young vines of the clos together with two premier cru sites (La Riotte and Le Village), and there is a communal Morey St. Denis. There are also whites from tiny plots in two Puligny Montrachet premier crus (Caillerets and Folatières). Occasionally there is a rosé. In fact, the tasting started with the 2013 rosé, and very fine it was too, with the grand cru quality of the grapes bringing a wonderful fragrance. “The rosé is made on the sorting table, when grapes that are not completely ripe are selected out. Direct pressurage is followed by fermentation in stainless steel. We don’t like to make it too often because the appellation is only Bourgogne,” Thierry explains.

Well what about the wines of Clos des Lambrays? Winemaking is quite traditional, with fermentation of whole bunches irrespective of vintage. This may be one reason why the wines remain moderate in alcohol and are not excessively colored. “Pinot Noir is the least black grape in the world – it is red – even Gamay in Beaujolais has more color. When you see a black Pinot Noir, it’s too extracted,” is Thierry’s view.

The vertical extended from 2012 to 1999 and the style certainly showed through. Some people describe Clos des Lambrays as showing blue fruits: I wouldn’t quite use that term, but I would describe the style as upright. Younger vintages can seem tight, and older vintages – at least in the span of this tasting – soften slowly, with fruits moving from cherries more towards strawberries, but not yet evolving in a savory or tertiary direction. As a result, vintage character shows through really clearly, from the softest 2002 (you should drink this now, says Thierry), the rich 2005, 2009, and 2012, to the leaner 2006 and 2008 (showing great precision). A fair summary is that the style focuses on purity of fruit. Running counter to the modern trend, these are definitely not wines for instant gratification: it remains to be seen how that will play under the aegis of LVMH.