Clos-de-Beze

This Grand Cru Chambertin Clos de Bèze  shows agreeably fresh, layered and cool wild red berry fruit aromas that are liberally laced with a sauvage character. There is good richness and plenty of volume to the tautly muscled medium weight plus flavors that possess a subtle minerality that continues onto the impressively long finish. Like several wines in the range this is not especially complex at present but my projected range offers the benefit of the doubt that much more will develop with time in bottle.

Eric and Jean-Luc Burguet succinctly described 2012 as a "difficult vintage that was not easy to manage. We lost a lot of the potential crop because of a poor flowering and then at the time of the harvest we lost more due to a careful sorting process. On the plus side the fruit was concentrated and the vinifications were able to pull out this material into the wine with almost no help from us. As a result the 2012s are quite fleshy and generous with seductive mouth feels that should allow the wines to be very popular as they will be easy to appreciate. For us, 2012 is not a great vintage but it is an attractive one all the same." My take on the Burguet 2012s is pretty much spot on with how the brothers feel about their wines, which is to say that the quality is consistent with the general level of the vintage. The 2012s will be bottled without fining or filtration.
91-93/100 Allen Meadows - burghound.com - issue 53 - Jan 2014

Glowing purple with an impressive density of fruit, though the detail is yet to emerge. Super-stylish, very graceful, yet the weight of fruit builds gloriously on the palate to a very noble finish with great persistence. It is all about the elegance. Superb. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

The 2013 harvest is the latest ever recorded at Burguet, starting 9th October, in the cold more than the rain – there was even some frost one morning. They have three separate sorting stations, though rot varied by sector. Vinification was normal, a long time in tank but a gentle approach. The 2013 is particularly, and consistently, successful chez Burguet.

Brilliant purple, very dense, with a wealth of concentrated red fruit on the nose, this starts quietly then builds enormously to the back of the palate. It’s suave and delicious, with a classical, peacock's tail finish fanning out at the back.

Erwan Faiveley believes that 2014 would be regarded as a great vintage – if only 2015 had not come along to trump it. He feels that the changes which have taken place in the cellar since 2007 have had a discernible effect on the quality of Faiveley wines, while similar qualitative changes in the vineyard are only now bearing fruit. Here, balanced but restricted yields are the key.

This was our pick between the Clos de Bèze and the Chambertin this year. Middleweight, this has bright, elegant fruit on its refined nose. The wine is attractive, floral, graceful through the middle, then comes up nicely behind. Notably floral, and very persistent.

“A vintage of pure happiness,” enthuses Nicolas Potel. He rightly retains enthusiasm for Burgundy as a whole and his own wines in particular, though his life has been made more difficult by the explosion of prices for grapes on the open market. However these cuvées make sense to us: we tasted a wide range and picked out the plums.

A glowing deep purple, an initial barrel toast soon departs and fruit rushes in. There is a great sense of harmony, enhanced by ultra-concentrated cherries, flamboyant at the front, rich through the middle, perfumed and timeless at the back. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Faiveley use three picking teams. Two started in the white wine vineyards on 28th September and were finished in four days. Then it was all hands to the red grapes. In general the harvest came in healthily, the hard work all year round in the vineyards paying dividends. We were once again very impressed.

Spicy, exuberant flavours with nice purity and sweet spices in the persistent finish. A very well made Clos de Beze that focuses on intense fruit and vibrant flavours. The finish has a salty minerality. Only 300 cases produced in 2012.
Jeannie Cho Lee - Master of Wine

Excellent mid red with a density of fruit on the nose, this is very stylish. Beautifully balanced, with lively red fruit. The acidity is wonderfully integrated, lively and lovely. Very persistent. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Frédéric Barnier is pleased with the wines in his cellar despite having to cope with a very difficult year, with high disease pressure through the summer, then a cold and damp September. He began picking on 23rd September, for the whites, but felt that it was essential to wait for the reds. Even so everything was picked by 5th October. Frédéric notes that it took time for colour and tannin to emerge.

Imperial purple robe. The nose stands up to be counted, with some intense raspberry notes. Statuesque but light on its feet, easily in balance with the final tannins.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director

Maison Roche de Bellene Production has recently moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Beaune, which is making life much easier for the Roche de Bellene team. The philosophy stays the same: work with excellent grape sources and get the wines out into the market at competitive prices. The reds have had an excellent following for many a year now, while recently the whites have shown the same impressive price to quality ratio that makes this such a good address.

Beautiful, graceful pink-purple colour and a sublimely seductive bouquet. An amazingly graceful expression, with beautiful refined raspberry fruit, a lovely pepperiness from the stems but the fruit returns in an exceptionally persistent finish. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

This is our first vintage with Domaine Bart, who makes wines of lovely understated grace and elegance. They had decent yields in 2013, just 10% below a full crop. Overall they have good colour and acidity with a fresh and cheerful fruit.

From the illustrious Clos de Bze vineyard comes this regal wine which somehow combines classic elegance with exceptional power. A brilliant, rich, succulent nose leads to a palate that bursts with wave upon wave of flavour, and just when you think it cannot deliver more there's a further burst of fruit. The incredibly long finish is quite humbling. This wine is frankly tremendous.

This vineyard is also on a long-term contract. A rich imperial purple, the nose shows a little new oak but dense, concentrated, classy fruit emerges. There is beautiful acidity, with everything in place, and impressive length. This is a wine whose flavours and intensity grow steadily across the palate towards the lingering finish. Drink 2024-2032.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

Although yields were acceptable for the Burguet brothers, the crop was – in the end – 20 percent behind the previous vintage. They began on 15th September and entirely de-stemmed the bunches, following their usual practice. Their ultra-meticulous triple-sorting table system was not needed this year. Beautifully poised, juicy wines.

Production was at 23hl/ha, yielding only 10 barrels, which is half the usual amount. These aren’t Bouchard’s vines, but the grower is clearly dedicated and produces great fruit, following some selected biodynamic principles. It’s very expressive and pleasurable and, although the house style is to offer a luxurious experience, there is no shortage of complexity here either. Drink 2026-2040.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer

Bouchard Père & Fils can trace its origins back to 1731 though it is no longer family- owned. In 1995 Champagne entrepreneur, Joseph Henriot, acquired the company. The wines are made by technical director Frédéric Weber in succession to Philippe Prost. An impressive gravity-flow winery on the Route de Savigny, the Cuverie St Vincent, was completed in 2005, enabling them to process all their wines with optimum efficiency. Bouchard’s total holdings comprise 130 hectares, including 12 hectares of Grand Cru and 74 hectares of Premier Cru, which makes them the largest vineyard owners in the Côte d’Or. Philippe Prost had an individual take on the vintage. His view is that the high levels of rainfall at the start of the year (themselves contributory to the frost damage) saturated the soil to such a degree that high levels of minerals were unlocked and subsequently taken up by the vines. It is useful to get the view of a producer who covers the whole region. He also observed that there were much smaller berries in the Côte de Beaune than the Côte de Nuits and that, on the whole, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were picked at almost the same time. He also offered a thought on bâtonnage: Bouchard prefers to roll their barrels to move the lees, and not to open the bung and stir. This preserves the CO2 in the wine which means less SO2 is necessary.

The 2013 Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru has an attractive mulberry and candied orange peel, touches of wild heather lending a bit of wildness. The oak is nicely integrated here. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy tannins: masculine with very fine tension on the black pepper-tinged finish that just needs to muster more flesh and corpulence. That may develop in bottle, of course.
Neal Martin - Wine Advocate - eRobertParker.com - Dec 2014