Clos-De-La-Roche

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.

Bottled only in magnums, offered singly in individual wooden boxes. It is very intense purple and with its usual great intensity, less forward than Clos St Denis. A certain strict style throughout, though not austere. Terrific density at the back of the palate.
Jasper Morris MW - Wine Buyer 

The grapes were picked in two tranches, a week apart, in order to optimise quality. There is terrific vigorous fruit anda little spice on the very dense palate. The fruit really surges to all parts of the mouth. This is very impressive for the vintage.

Until 31st August this product is discounted by 30%*
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.
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Rich inky purple belies the finesse which is soon apparent in the mouth. Very beautiful and extremely long, with tingling minerals underneath the coating of velvet. This is always the most elegant of the Bernstein grands crus.
(Jasper Morris MW, BBR Buyer)

Fine bright graceful mid purple. The bouquet shows a wealth of complex fruit along with a touch of toast from the Chassin barrels. There is dark cherry, perhaps blackberry and dark raspberry too. This starts smoothly in the mouth and then kicks on to another level with a vast surge of concentrated fruit. The structure shows both ripe tannins and a little trace of acidity, bringing out the savoury side of Clos de la Roche. This is an impressively dense wine, with very good grip and plenty of nervous tension. Very special this year.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Buying Director

Bright pale purple, with a heavenly perfume behind, perhaps the most elegant wine in the cellar. Really pure and perfumed, with some violets in the bouquet, immensely long, with just a little spice in the mix. The stems give focus, precision and freshness. Gorgeous wine.
(Jasper Morris MW, BBR Buyer)

Evolved, laid back nose. Medium body. Delicious, jammy forest fruit flavours, supported by fine acidity and savoury, gamey notes. Balanced, with impressive old wine power.

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.

This is one of those wines that shows its class from the very first sniff. Absolutely delicious, it has perfectly harmonious fruit, and the harmonious oak from high class barrels is in evidence too. It should drink well quite early on but stay the course.

This is the best of the Grand Crus from Morey and Nicolas has preserved all of the lush, exotic, blueberry notes that distinguish the vineyard. An ample, dcollet wine. Drink from 2010.

Clos de la Roche (16.90 ha) is one of the four Grands Crus of Morey-St Denis, noted for the structure and density of its wines which can be austere in youth. Olivier Bernstein’s grapes come from 50-year-old vines. This wine never displays the deeper colours, but the lighter purple hue is clear and pure.

There is a lovely sensual quality to the nose with real finesse. Morello cherry is the nearest fruit. A beautiful mouthful of velvet fruit leads through to a finely structured finish. This is a gentle giant of a wine.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

The wines of Burgundy – perhaps more than any other region – are a product both of place but also of people. With individual vineyard plots often split amongst countless producers, the terroir expressed in a wine can be unusually specific; equally the style of the winemaker can be readily discerned when tasted against his neighbours.

Back in 2007, Jasper Morris MW – Berry Bros. & Rudd’s Burgundy buyer, who lives in the region for most of the year – heard whispers about a new producer, whose wines were said to be universally impressive. Jasper duly sought out Olivier Bernstein and tasted his portfolio: “It was terrifically exciting to come across a brand-new quality producer in the Burgundy market, and to taste wines of such class from his very first vintage,” says Morris.

“Now, five years on, Olivier has matured into a confident player with his Premiers and Grands Crus wines of the Côte de Nuits.” Since Berry Bros. & Rudd first offered Bernstein’s wines with the 2007 vintage, Olivier’s reputation in the UK and worldwide markets has steadily grown. We are delighted that the 2012 vintage – unquestionably Bernstein’s most refined and well-composed offering to date – will be available to the UK market exclusively through Berry Bros. & Rudd.

Not only is this Renardes a fabulous example of Corton, but the price is unequivocally perfect. Behind the purple robe is a very dense, fruit-packed bouquet and a wealth of fruit on the palate which keeps building to an exceptionally long finish.

Fine brisk, glowing purple, a really enticing colour before you get on to the nose, a touch of blackberry though otherwise predominantly red fruit notes. Soft and suave and succulent but with presence and structure. Very long finish. A great result.
(Jasper Morris MW, BBR Buyer)

The nose is very sensual and classy, with ripe cherry fruit giving a sense of very small, concentrated, ripe grapes. The wine has a very precise, pure, linear intensity, with a marvellous power. There is a superb nervous tension, with deep, dark fruit too cool to be called exuberant. Crisp with fine fruit, black cherry on the palate, lush and nicely put together, ripe tannins and crisp acidity: this is very fine. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer