2022 Auxey-Duresses, 1er Cru, Comte Armand, Burgundy
Critics reviews
A similar bright fresh purple, with just a little more fruit weight on the palate. A little bit plusher in texture than the village Auxey, but still with notable acidity behind. A crunchy energy alongside the darker fruit.
Drink 2028 - 2032
Jasper Morris MW, Inside Burgundy (December 2023)
The 2022 Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru has a well-defined bouquet with brambly black fruit, wild strawberry and a touch of white pepper. This is much more complex than the Village Cru. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly finer tannins than the Village Cru but is still quite structured, which is why Paul Zanetti told me he would do a longer barrel ageing to soften the texture. Promising, but be patient.
“We did not have any frost,” winemaker Paul Zanetti explains at the Pommard estate, where he’s reached his tenth vintage anniversary. “It was quite an easy vintage, warm but not too much. There were no real heat waves, but it was hot in July. It was a record yield at around 37hL/ha, the highest since 2014, and it was the same in 2023, though when we pressed, there was less juice than expected. Nevertheless, we have very good quantity and quality. The fruit was perfectly mature with alcohol, about 13.5% and 14.5% for the Clos des Epeneaux and good total acidity. I did not use whole bunches as we don’t have the space in the winery. We did have some stuck ferments. I put the bunches in a fridge at 12° and 13° Celsius, and the yeasts ‘ate’ the sugar quite easily.”
I tasted the crown jewel of Clos des Epeneaux, the 5.23-hectare monopole, via separate cuvées per vine age and location, always a fascinating exercise highlighting their differences. The blend, put together in front of me by Zanetti, looks very promising, maybe not the greatest ever made (both the 2017 and 2018 tasted from bottle alongside appear to be the pick of recent vintages). It tends to overshadow their handful of other cuvées. In 2022, I would keep an eye out for the very capable Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru.
Drink 2027 - 2037
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (January 2024)
About this WINE
Domaine Comte Armand
Owned by the family of the Comte Armand since 1825, Clos des Epeneaux is among Pommard’s most revered vineyards. Post-phylloxera, it wasn’t replanted until 1930. Further vineyards were acquired in ’94: Auxey-Duresses, Auxey-Duresses Premier Cru, Volnay and Volnay’s Frémiets.
The modern era effectively began with Pascal Marchand, who was succeeded as winemaker by Benjamin Leroux. When Ben left in 2014 to focus on his own business, Paul Zinetti took the reins.
Auxey-Duresses
A small village in a side valley off the Côte de Beaune, with a slightly cooler local climate making for a more austere style of Burgundy. Nonetheless this can be an excellent source of relatively inexpensive wine in warmer years, or from top producers. At the moment production is about 75:25 red to white. The reds can age well, while the whites can have a most attractive minerality.
- 138 hectares of village Auxey-Duresses
- 32 hectares of Premier Cru vineyards (nine in all), the best being Les Duresses
- Recommended producers: Comte Armand (red), Fichet (white)
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or.
Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.
Because of the thinness of the skins, Pinot Noir wines are lighter in colour, body and tannins. However the best wines have grip, complexity and an intensity of fruit seldom found in wine from other grapes. Young Pinot Noir can smell almost sweet, redolent with freshly crushed raspberries, cherries and redcurrants. When mature, the best wines develop a sensuous, silky mouth feel with the fruit flavours deepening and gamey "sous-bois" nuances emerging.
The best examples are still found in Burgundy, although Pinot Noir`s key role in Champagne should not be forgotten. It is grown throughout the world with notable success in the Carneros and Russian River Valley districts of California, and the Martinborough and Central Otago regions of New Zealand.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
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Description
This is a blend from two of the most sought-after sites in the appellation: Les Breterins on white soils providing tension throughout and Les Duresses which lies on richer clay soils providing the tannic structure and body. This is more concentrated than the village cuvée with a delicate, sour red cherry note.
Drink 2026 - 2030
Berry Bros. & Rudd
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