2014 Clos de Vougeot, Grand Cru, Domaine Jean Grivot, Burgundy
Critics reviews
Bright purple red, with excellent density to the fruit. Brawny, and muscular, yet with good intensity and the fruit absolutely follows through. Substantial oak which contributes to the tannins but it is the sinewy nature of the fruit which defines this wine
Jasper Morris MW, Inside Burgundy (September 2017)
50+ year old vines located in the lower section of the Clos.
Somewhat surprisingly this is notably more elegant than it usually is with its expressive nose of black and red pinot fruit, spice and abundant earth and tea scents. There is a lovely sense of underlying tension to the precise, muscular and powerful flavours that possess excellent size, weight and finishing punch on the youthfully austere, firm and huge finale that is borderline chewy. This may be moderately more elegant than usual but it remains a Clos de Vougeot all the same and one that is going to require fully 15 years to reach its apogee. If you have the patience, this is knock-out good for the appellation.
Drink from 2029 onward
Allen Meadows, Burghound.com (January 2017)
Very rich and confident – perhaps the grandest wine I have tasted today – with real reverberance and massively nuanced fruit.
Drink 2020 - 2034
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (January 2016)
Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2014 tasting, Grivot's 2014 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru has a tightly wound bouquet with dark berry fruit, incense and a light melted-tar aroma. The palate is medium-bodied with juicy tannin and well-judged acidity. The oak is a little prominent, but it is simpatico with the structure of the wine and just needs a couple of years to be absorbed. It does have a slightly saturnine personality, but it is also a quite sumptuous and beautifully crafted Clos de Vougeot.
Drink 2019 - 2035
Neal Martin, Wine Advocate (October 2017)
Bright red-ruby Classic Clos de Vougeot aromas of dark cherry, liquorice and minerals Concentrated, spicy and sweet; surprisingly pliant in the middle palate for the cru and for the vintage but with lovely inner-mouth energy too The dark fruit flavours are complicated by an element of saline minerality Not as austere as I would have expected but still in a rather masculine style and finishing with plenty of tannic clout This deep, vigorous wine offers lovely lingering perfume My score may prove to be unnecessarily conservative but this wine needs extended ageing.
“The 2014s have had great drinkability from the start,” said Jean Grivot in November He compared them to the 2011s for their “great charm” but noted that 2014 is a better version of this style He went on: “The 2014s don’t have the same dimension as the 2015s but today they seem very good The ‘15s are more lyrical, voluptuous, sophisticated, while the ‘14s have freshness, precision and wisdom” Interestingly, the pHs are higher in the ‘14s than in the ‘15s (an average of 352 vs 342, respectively) Grivot described the later vintage as “opulent, but with the acidity of great Chardonnay” Grivot bottled his 2014s in February and at the end of March.
Drink 2024 - 2034
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous.com (March 2017)
About this WINE
Domaine Jean Grivot
Jean Grivot took over from his father, Gaston, in 1955. He handed the domaine on to son Étienne – married to Marielle Bize from Savigny – in the early 1980s. When Etienne Grivot took over, the house style was for gentle, graceful wines, perhaps a little weak in lesser vintages.
Étienne has since found his own voice, making a range of increasingly fine wines. Since the mid-2000s, he has reduced yields and fine-tuned vineyard and cellar work. The next generation – Mathilde and Hubert – are increasingly influential, working under their father’s experienced and wise guidance.
Vougeot
Most of the wine produced in this small village comes from a single, walled Grand Cru vineyard, the famous Clos de Vougeot. The vineyard in its present form dates from 1336 (when it was first planted by monks of Cîteaux), although it was not until the following century that it was entirely enclosed by stone walls.
Clos de Vougeot is both the smallest commune and the largest Clos in the Cote d’Or. It consists of 50 hectares of vineyards shared among 82 owners, with six soil types. There is quite a difference in quality between the upper (best) and lower (least fine) parts of the vineyard, though in medieval times a blend from all sectors was considered optimum.Le Domaine de la Vougeraie makes a very fine white wine from Le Clos Blanc de Vougeot, first picked out by the monks of Cîteaux as being suitable ground for white grapes in the year 1110.
- Five hectares of village Vougeot
- 12 hectares of Premier Cru vineyards (four in all): Les Cras, Les Petits-Vougeots, Clos de la Perrière and Clos Blanc de Vougeot
- 51 hectares of Grand Cru vineyard – Clos de Vougeot
- Recommended producers: Domaine de la Vougeraie, Domaine Bertagna, Engel, Anne Gros, Grivot, Liger-Belair, Meo-Camuzet.
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.
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Description
Brilliant, dark, intense, purple fruit; this has a wealth of damson and fresh mulberry, a huge weight of fruit, yet still very much in balance. This is wonderfully dense in the mouth, more black fruit in style, a really intense, beautiful wine with mineral crunch. Étienne Grivot reports better yields in 2014, about halfway between the miserable crops of the previous four vintages and what would count as a very good year. The grapes are de-stemmed but preserved fully intact using the newest model of destemmer. They were totally healthy in 2014 and Mathilde Grivot describes the wines as being accessible, fresh, yet still complex. We would add that they are – yet again – amongst the finest of the whole Côte.
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