Auxey-Duresses

This is a lovely mid-purple in colour, boasting a beautiful nose of deep red fruit. The palate displays lovely sweet red griotte cherry fruit, followed by a lively but not trenchant acidity behind.
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

This was Benjamin Leroux’s last vintage at Domaine du Comte Armand and possibly his smallest yet. Just 18 barrels of Clos des Epeneaux have been made, with a yield of around eight hectolitres per hectare. The vintage began on 25th September with good looking grapes and decent maturity. Benjamin is staying involved to see the vintage into bottle, though otherwise Paul Zinetti is now securely in charge.

Glowing a fine pink to purple, this is very fresh Pinot Noir, but has a lovely velvet character too, with crunchy fruit, good density, fresh acidity and very long length. I love this wine.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director Volumes at Domaine du Comte Armand were broadly similar to 2010 in 2011, but will be catastrophically low in 2012 as Pommard was one of the hardest hit villages with the poor weather. We must therefore take advantage of Benjamin Leroux’s brilliant range of wines made available this year, from the supposedly lowly Aligoté upwards. Look out for the potential of the fabulous Clos des Epeneaux, which Ben has harnessed to a quality level rarely seen before.

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A sensual, gorgeous nose is followed by a lovely rich mouthful of ripe fruit which caresses the throat with this Auxey-Duresses from Domaine du Comte Armand. The finish of the wine displays a welcome mineral crispness, showing off this very successful wine.

Ripe purple, with a dense concentration of dark cherry fruit, there is something a touch firmer behind, with more structure, as befits a Premier Cru. The bones are covered by delicious, unctuous fruit. This is a wine with great persistence. Drink 2020-2028.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

Paul Zinetti’s second harvest at the domaine has at least given him a few more grapes to play with than 2014 and fruit of exceptional quality. Nonetheless 2015 was once again a very short crop because of the previous hail damage, delivering just one third of what used to be normal. The grapes were mostly de-stemmed, although some whole bunches were used, but always a minority.

A lovely bright, luminous colour, this has a very pretty nose and enough weight to balance Auxey’s slightly grainy tannins. With a bigger crop, Paul only had space for eight percent whole-bunch in the tank and the  oak component has been kept to 15 percent. Drink 2020-2024.

Paul Zinetti was realistic yet confident in the quality of his 2017s. Such an early harvest, which started in Volnay Frémiets on 3rd September and ended in Auxey on 11th September, provided new challenges which Paul addressed creatively and sympathetically. The wines were fruity and direct but he found that colour and structure were slow to come, so he kept the wine on skins for a week or more after fermentation. There is less whole-bunch this year as the stems weren’t always fully ripe, but his de-stemmer preserves a lot of whole berries anyway. He will bottle all the reds before Christmas without filtration but he will trial some fining to round out the tannins.