Morey-Saint-Denis

Jean-Pierre compares this to a high-quality Chassagne-Montrachet because the vineyard is on the type of limestone known as "calcaire de Chassagne". It certainly opens with a powerful, flinty character. There is real dramatic tension to this, saline yet succulent, with very good depth, and we agree that there is an affinity to Chassagne. It has fine persistence too. Drink 2019-2023.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

It is not easy to get a tasting with Jean-Pierre Guyon as he likes to be out in the vineyards all day long (“I am the shepherd of my grapes”). His meticulous work in the vineyards enables him to work thereafter with ripe and healthy grapes which can be vinified without sulphur and entirely as whole bunches. The wines have been matured in less new wood than previously, although it’s still two thirds for the top cuvées. Jean-Pierre has also worked his whites to minimise their weight in this sunny year, fermenting in older barrels with no lees’ stirring.

With a brilliant, deep purple colour, the bouquet shows a touch of chocolatey reduction along with vigorous red fruit, while the texture on the palate is superb: a lovely grain to the tannins, moderate acidity but still fresh.

Our jovial friend Jérôme Castagnier has excelled himself this year. The promise we picked up on last year has really been delivered in 2014. He says that the wines have lovely flesh but also a beautiful freshness, and notes some similarities to 2010. His generic Burgundies (available on www.bbr.com/burgundy2014) are also excellent.

Bright purple with a deep centre, this has plump, chunky, sumptuous fruit, offering a delicious mouthfeel – especially through the middle of the palate, as is the way with vineyards called Les Charmes. There is a little structure behind, with a long finish on dark red fruit. Drink 2020-2024

When Virgile Lignier came back from his brief summer holidays, he toured the vines and saw a bit of rot on a biggish (by recent standards) crop, so he took a substantial team round to remove damaged bunches and anything unripe. He picked the healthy grapes from 17th September and gave the new vintage a long but light extraction. He has made some very succulent, juicy wines here in 2014.

Morey-St Denis, Les Faconnières offers a dense, purple colour with an almost black centre. Virgile considers the soil to be similar to Clos de la Roche. It is more backward than the other Premiers Crus, dense and ungiving at this stage yet with a magical intensity of fruit, a crunchy finish, and excellent balance. Drink 2002-2028

When Virgile Lignier came back from his brief summer holidays, he toured the vines and saw a bit of rot on a biggish (by recent standards) crop, so he took a substantial team round to remove damaged bunches and anything unripe. He picked the healthy grapes from 17th September and gave the new vintage a long but light extraction. He has made some very succulent, juicy wines here in 2014. 

Bright, mid-purple colour, this has a more linear, mineral nose, compared to the flesh of Les Charmes. Indeed this is quite chiselled by Virgile’s standards. The fruit offers a raspberry and fresh blackberry mix. The chalky soil shows in this very mineral wine, which has a delightful finish. Drink 2021-2026

When Virgile Lignier came back from his brief summer holidays, he toured the vines and saw a bit of rot on a biggish (by recent standards) crop, so he took a substantial team round to remove damaged bunches and anything unripe. He picked the healthy grapes from 17th September and gave the new vintage a long but light extraction. He has made some very succulent, juicy wines here in 2014.

Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Virgile went through the vineyards 15 days before harvest, removing the leaves on the south side and taking away anything that was rotten. This kept his crop in good condition so he could afford to wait for full ripeness, not starting until 11th October. He then practised very gentle extraction to keep the tannins supple. He compares 2013 to 2008 but with greater richness of fruit. The crop is 15-to-20% up on 2012 but still well below normal.

 

The clay in the soil here gives a depth of flavour and a roundness of style to this wine. It is pure purple in colour, with a lovely generosity of fruit, yet still with the freshness of the vintage. Very pure and long.
Jasper Morris MW – Wine Buyer

Virgile Lignier’s favourite Premier Cru, we suspect. A touch of toast up front, but the bouquet is otherwise deep and detailed, with a marvellous mix of fruit, acidity and judicious oaking.
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Virgile went through the vineyards 15 days before harvest, removing the leaves on the south side and taking away anything that was rotten. This kept his crop in good condition so he could afford to wait for full ripeness, not starting until 11th October. He then practised very gentle extraction to keep the tannins supple. He compares 2013 to 2008 but with greater richness of fruit. The crop is 15-to-20% up on 2012 but still well below normal.
 

Bright purple with medium density, this has a ripe, red-cherry nose. The elegant fruit is backed by a surprisingly firm structure which will require time.

Though we still have the pleasure of tasting with Christian Sérafin, it is now his niece, Frédérique who is solely responsible for winemaking. Christian describes 2014 as being all about elegance and balance, with neither too much acidity nor tannin. The Sérafin wines always repay patience.

Rich, ripe purple colour with a sense of energy to the nose. It has ripe, glossy fruit, a touch dry behind, but with weight at the back of the palate. Fruit comes storming back at the finish to confirm the potential. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Christian Sérafin is very happy with how 2013 worked out in the end, though yields were once again 25% below normal, even if a touch more than in 2012. The team removed rot and unripe bunches in the vineyard, then waited to pick until after the wet weekend which helped both sugar and acidity.

Dense purple in the glass, this very backward still on the nose, but luxurious on the palate. Tight behind, it shows the oak a bit. Not one for immediate pleasure but with a huge potential for the long-term future.  
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

After lengthy negotiations, we have secured a good allocation of these top class 2013s from Jérôme Castagnier. We fell just as much in love with the generic wines as with those further up the scale. Jérôme began on 1st October, taking pains to verify the ripeness of each vineyard before deciding the picking date. The grapes were all de-stemmed.

Bright purple, this is a little more open than the Clos St Denis, and is absolutely mouthfilling, with deep red fruit, floral notes, a mineral thread and great length. Bouncing, floral, vivacious and very young. Highly recommended. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

After lengthy negotiations, we have secured a good allocation of these top class 2013s from Jérôme Castagnier. We fell just as much in love with the generic wines as with those further up the scale. Jérôme began on 1st October, taking pains to verify the ripeness of each vineyard before deciding the picking date. The grapes were all de-stemmed.

This starts promisingly with a glowing, purple colour throughout. It enjoys a very fine, heady nose, succulent and satiny, with a little touch of darker fruit, beautiful concentration and elegance. The whole is supported by a firm structure. This is swimmingly good, with a really long finish to boot.

Our jovial friend Jérôme Castagnier has excelled himself this year. The promise we picked up on last year has really been delivered in 2014. He says that the wines have lovely flesh but also a beautiful freshness, and notes some similarities to 2010. His generic Burgundies (available on www.bbr.com/burgundy2014) are also excellent.

Deepish purple in colour, this is really fabulously classy with great density and a lifted magical finish. Some blood orange notes lurk in the fruit. Altogether this is a red-blooded wine – really terrific. The finish is awesome: the whole range is really fine this year.

Our jovial friend Jérôme Castagnier has excelled himself this year. The promise we picked up on last year has really been delivered in 2014. He says that the wines have lovely flesh but also a beautiful freshness, and notes some similarities to 2010. His generic Burgundies (available on www.bbr.com/burgundy2014) are also excellent.

Burgundy 2012 En Primeur - Staff Favourite
Intense, ripe, dark and spicy. Huge depth and concentration across the broad, mouth filling palate. Fine acidity provides the vibrancy and drive. A very fine Grand Cru combining charm and finesse with extreme power. Patience required to see the best here.
Martyn Rolph, Fine Wine

This has been a favourite Roche de Bellene cuvée for a while. The 2012 has a beautiful fresh mid-purple colour, with a sublime, balanced, heady nose, that’s very floral and exquisitely poised. Fine-boned, precise red fruit on the palate, with some tannins behind to lend support and just enough acidity to complete the balance of the wine.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

Nicolas Potel has retained the majority of his regular contracts in 2012, though a couple are missing after the hail. Like everybody else, he has had to pay more for his grapes though, especially at the top end of the hierarchy. But as ever there are some delicious wines in the range, and at the lower end the prices are thoroughly competitive.

Bin end – limited quantities at a discounted price.

What a beautiful perfume! Layers of highly detailed blue and red fruits reveal a deep rooted sweet spice. This is effortlessly echoed on the palate, where further fruit complexity of Damsons and Plums show a darker side.
Gary Owen, Private Account Manager

Quite elegant, this has plump fruit on the palate before a mineral finish. It is an attractive wine with harmonious, balancing acidity.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director Nicolas Potel has installed the négociant arm of his business on the Savigny side of town which gives him plenty of space for making and maturing the wines, along with logistics and office needs, while keeping his Domaine de Bellene operation completely separate in Beaune itself. The selling point here is consistent competence mixed with attractive pricing.

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Grand Cru, Grand in. Lacy magic from the confident, experienced, but never complacent winemaker, Thierry Brouin. Bright and energetic, this sophisticated red displays a wealth of soft strawberry fruit that, along with a dash of pepper, suffuses the bouquet. It then finishes on a richly satisfying palate of ripe, soft and rounded red fruit.

The Clos des Lambrays in Morey St Denis has been producing fine wine since at least 1363, its quality being recognised by promotion to Grand Cru status in 1981. The estate was purchased in 1996 by the Freund family and since then dramatic changes have taken place, leading to an upsurge in quality. The domaine owns 8.66ha of Clos des Lambrays, making it almost a monopoly – there is one other producer with a few rows of vines at the bottom.

Winemaker Thierry Brouin has been in charge since 1979. The vineyards are run on more or less organic lines, with no chemical anti-rot sprays, and ploughing of the soil by horse. In the cellar, he likes to use the majority of the stems, favours punching down over pumping over, and prefers to restrain the amount of new oak – around 50% for the grand cru.  Domaine des Lambrays produces wines which possess balance, power and finesse and which fully live up to their Grand Cru status.
Lifted, ripe strawberry and redcurrant on the nose, alongside a lack of vanillin spice from the oak. The palate is multi-layered with fine tannins and a core of intense fruit. The finish goes on and on in this very fine effort. A little patience will be required but will be well worth the wait!
Fergus Stewart, BBR Fine Wine

Made from tiny yields (only 26 hl/ha), the 2008 Clos des Lambrays certainly makes up in quality what it lacks in volume. There is tremendously elegant fruit on the bouquet and it is completed by a fresh, racy finish; a great result.

Bright pink purple with a very stylish – rather than explosive – nose, more redolent of Chambolle sensuality than Morey wildness. Great weight on the palate and a lovely mineral thread behind, fine and stylish.
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Despite this being a very late season, Patrice compares 2013 to the fruit of early vintages such as 2007 and 2011, but with more stuffing. It also reminds him of 1980, a particularly successful vintage chez Rion. The 2013 crop is a small one though, a touch more than 2012 but less than 2011. They employed two sorting tables, and since the grapes which reached the vats were all healthy, they used less sulphur during vinification.