Les Corbeaux

An entrancing bouquet of lifted red fruit notes and good acidity are evident on this charming Gevrey-Chambertin Les Corbeaux 1er Cru from Domaine Sérafin which has great length and weight – altogether thoroughly satisfying.

This exceptionally intense wine kicks off with a brilliant fresh purple colour and hauntingly fine lifted red fruit bouquet. There is a huge depth of fruit, albeit still somewhat tightly knit in its youth. A very fine wine this year.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

The Sérafins (Christian, his daughter Karine and niece Frédérique) do not rack their wines before bottling, having separated out all but the fine lees after the fermentation. Such is the concentration of the fruit in these wines that they can easily handle the new barrels in which they are being matured. The Sérafins take particular care to apportion particular forests and coopers to different cuvées. Overall, their crop is down by 30% in 2012.

An extension of Mazis-Chambertin, this walled vineyard has deep soils, giving a broad-shouldered and somewhat masculine expression of Gevrey. It’s spicy and brooding, with menthol notes and a supple blackberry mid-palate that gives way to a spicy finish. Drink 2023-2033.
Adam Bruntlett, Wine Buyer

This domaine was originally put on the map by Christian Sérafin’s father, Stanilaus Sérafin, a Polish émigré, who settled in Burgundy before the war. He initially worked as a mason, before purchasing some land in 1947 and establishing himself as a vigneron. His son Christian inherited the domaine in 1988, though he had been making the wine for the previous 20 years. Christian Sérafin is now past retirement age, but with a niece (Frédérique) in the vineyards and cuverie, and a daughter (Karine) in the office, continuity is in place. The style here is for powerful wines which age exceptionally well. Christian Sérafin’s niece Frédérique feels that 2016 is “une grande année de garde”, and could well surpass 2015. In fact, her confidence in the vintage is such that all the wines will be raised entirely in new oak barrels. The most badly-frosted vineyards were Bourgogne and Chambolle Baudes, which suffered 60 percent frost. Overall yields were down by around 50 percent but the cousins expect to release a larger proportion of the crop than usual en primeur in order to minimise the immediate impact of the losses. These are certainly wines which deserve long- term ageing.

Sérafin’s vines sit within a clos of sorts, in what used to be a cemetery. The vines are 50 years old and the wine has an appealing fragrant top note with a touch more complexity than the village wine. Karine views this as a typical expression of Gevrey. Drink 2022-2027.

The harvest was done early and quickly here, starting on 6th September and finished by 12th. Karine Sérafin explained that the estate was harvesting earlier than before, to keep more freshness in the wines, and also working more with leaf coverage. The old vines negated any need to green harvest and yields are up by only 20 percent from 2016, but otherwise Karine and her cousin Frédérique are intent on preserving the individuality of Christian Sérafin’s style for vins de garde, with 100 percent new oak for everything upwards from the Gevrey Vieilles Vignes.