From Faiveley’s first vineyard, which was purchased in the 1830s, comes this lovely, bright, mid-red purple wine. It’s very perfumed with some delicious ripe cherries; this is very pure, precise and refined on the palate with a very persistent finish.

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.

Bin end – limited quantities at a discounted price.

White pepper dominates the nose, along with darker berry fruit and a touch of strawberry. Dark fruits control in the mouth too, followed by a chocolate note or two, and some structure provided by the stems.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

During the last year, Etienne de Montille, who has run Château de Puligny-Montrachet for the last decade, bought out the previous owners. 2012 will therefore be the first vintage of the new regime and also the first which will be fully certified organic after completion of the necessary three years. In 2011 the Château has produced a good crop of white wines, with old-fashioned low alcohol levels in both the reds and whites: wines originally found to be around 12% abv have been adjusted to 12.5% abv, anything above that was untouched.


An intensely floral nose combines with notes of spicy green tea, anise, earth and a hint of the sauvage. There is a seductive, even silky mouth feel to the very supple, round and delicious flavors that are underpinned by dusty tannins on the well-balanced and persistent finish. Lovely stuff fashioned in an understated style.
Allen Meadows - burghound.com - Apr 2013

Burgundy 2012 En Primeur - Staff Favourite
Bright red and black fruit, rich and velvety on nose. Delightful black fruit on the palate, rich and pure, but with some fine, grippy tannins keeping it all in check. Yet another triumph from the talented Pierre Vincent of Domaine de la Vougeraie.
Chris Pollington, Fine Wine

The Clos comprises three hectares in all, but half is being replanted. The rest are 40-year-old vines. There is deep red fruit on the nose which blossoms gloriously in the glass and continues on the palate, leaving a rosy glow behind. A spectacular debut vintage.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

This superb domaine grows in reputation and also in size: this year sees the first vintage of Nuits-St Georges, Clos de Thorey. Look out for even further additions in the next two years. Winemaker Pierre Vincent’s style is for lighter colours and very sensual wines and he has done a cracking job again in 2012; a vintage which supported the plentiful use of whole bunch fermentation. The domaine is certified organic and fully biodynamic.

Classic, full purple with a striking, ripe fruit nose. A wealth of fruit on the palate, seductive up front yet with a crystalline crunch behind and excellent persistence. Shows very fine bones at the finish. Quite an elegant Nuits-St Georges.
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.

 

Bright purple, smooth, rich, this fills out in the middle and the back, with dark ripe fruit, very fine quality tannins and excellent persistence. Fruit swarms back at the finish. Really good plant material here apparently. It certainly tastes that way.
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Harvest began during the last week in September and finished just before the storm. There was less whole bunch vinification for the wines affected by hail, but Volnay Taillepieds, Pommard Rugiens, Corton Clos du Roi and the wines from the Côte de Nuits were all predominantly vinified with their stems.

This glows with a beautiful purple colour and a nose laden with really heady fruit. The wine has marvellous energy right through the middle, light on its feet, yet sinewy and concentrated. It really fills every part of the mouth.

Thibault has made a fine and elegant range of 2014s, with little sign of the reduction which has sometimes prevailed here in the past. He has employed a fair proportion of whole-bunch fermentation, sending a crack team of pickers into the vineyards ahead of the rest to select the healthiest bunches. Another interest at the moment lies in finding the perfect toasting for his barrels, often choosing a minimal approach. We shall also be making a separate offer of Thibault’s brilliant 2014s from his Moulin à Vent estate.

Just 11 barrels were made from two hectares, after hail, bad flowering and the heat spike at the end of July had taken their toll. But what is left is wonderful; glowing purple in colour, with rich black fruit flooding the palate. There is weight and energy, very tight structure and ultra-concentration.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

Thibault’s two domaines, based in Moulin à Vent and Nuits-St Georges, both returned paltry yields of 16 hl/ha in 2012. Among the Côte d’Or appellations, the Hautes Côtes, Nuits and Gevrey-Chambertin suffered in particular. All of which is a great shame, given the quality of the wines which have been made. Even where Thibault purchases grapes (Aloxe-Corton and Chambolle- Musigny), Thibault makes the major decisions in the vineyard management. His own vines are farmed biodynamically, with ploughing by horse.

Etienne Grivot has emerged as a star name in Vosne Romanée and neighbouring Nuits over the last few vintages. This is a superb cuvée of village Nuits, fine and fresh with abundant energy and a subtle range of red and black fruit flavours. Impressively persistent.
(Jasper Morris MW, BBR Buyer)

Nuits St Georges is renowned for its rich, weighty wines, the most stylish of which come from the Vosne-Romanee side of the appellation. Amongst these Aux Lavieres is a well thought of lieu-dit beneath premier cru Les Murgers.

Mingling plums and prunes with weight and depth, this wine is initially restrained but it is all there. A huge volume of flavour develops on the palate, revealing a wealth of fruit and some tannins. This is perfectly in balance for the long term, and marks a big step forward for Thibault. Jasper Morris MW,Berrys' Burgundy Director 2011 was a relatively easy year in the vineyards for Thibault, as there were no problems with health. The main decision was the date to pick (from 5th September) which he chose by leaf colour as an indication of the end of the vine cycle. He employed very gentle vinification this year to keep the fruit fresh. Thibault has been moving towards and elegant style, a little bit away from the plumpness of his early wines. He manages this through shrewd judgement on the use of stems and particular attention to the type and toasting of wood to be used. He is especially proud of his ‘tartare’ barrels with minimum toasting.

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An amazing intensity on the nose of this classy wine is immediately appealing, with lifted aromatics and a good density of fruit within. Bright red fruit expresses itself wonderfully, with hints of a little tangerine note and fresh acidity.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director This domaine continues to deliver exceptionally high quality wines and is surely now one of the brightest jewels in the crown of Vosne-Romanée. The harvest began on 31st August in 2011 and that is the earliest ever at this domaine. Etienne Grivot was happy to pick at 12 to 12.5%, seeing no value in waiting and losing acidity. The wines have a dramatic tension to them in youth and will certainly age exceptionally well.

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This Nuits-St Georges Porets-St Georges 1er Cru from Domaine Faiveley is a very successful cuve with black cherry notes, intriguing concentration and well-judged use of wood, all harmoniously merging on the palate.

Patrice Rion and his wife Michèle began their own small domaine in 1990, but have since expanded. Alongside their domaine wines, Patrice makes a small range of négociant cuvées. He has recently been joined in the business by son Maxime. Patrice’s style is for very pure, harmonious wines, skilfully vinified and then matured in oak barrels with a well-judged percentage of new oak (usually 50 percent new) for 18 months, without racking or fining.

The blend for this Nuits-St Georges, Clos des Argillières is of fruit from the old vines (1945 and 1954) mixed with a few barrels of younger vines (1979). A fabulous, sumptuous nose of plums and Morello cherries wafts from the glass, while the palate has lovely weight and a fine, mineral finish, without the harder edge occasionally found in the past.

As with all Thibault’s wines this year, there is an impressive marriage between stony minerality and the richness of fruit that is derived from fully ripe grapes. This is a beautifully rounded, succulent wine from Nuits’ greatest vineyard.

Beautiful bright purple in colour and with a really attractive nose of oak and seamlessly integrated fruit, this wine has a lovely middle ground of dark fruit. A superb village wine.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director

This has been one of the most exciting cellars in the whole of Burgundy for the last few vintages, a fact which is beginning to be reflected in the pricing. The significant reduction in crop this year, which Etienne Grivot ascribes more to the extreme winter cold than poor flowering, is also a factor. Etienne has been working hard to refine the tannins in his wines, and has surely succeeded in 2010, by producing wines of great energy but with suave, sophisticated finishes. These are brilliant wines that unfortunately, are in short supply.

Dense, bright purple and offering a powerful nose with dark red fruit and some chocolate notes, the tremendous wine has a structure based on ripe tannins backed up by fresh acidity. A little more time in the barrel will see this wine come up trumps.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director

2010 is year three of the ‘new’ Faiveley style and they have again delivered an excellent set of wines. They picked from 20th September to 29th, beginning with Côte d’Or whites. The new regime has concentrated on an overhaul of winemaking principles, leading to a refinement of style. Next up will be a renovation of their Côte Chalonnaise cellars. They have also been expanding significantly into the Côte de Beaune, especially for white wines.

Les Porêts was the first vineyard the Faiveleys ever bought. This wine has fair depth of colour, quite gentle and graceful, with medium weight but impressively long. Unusually for the house style, some whole bunches (15%) have been used to lighten the density of central Nuits-St Georges and confirm this as a stylish wine. Medium, deep, red fruit, and very persistent.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director

The new era at Faiveley is now into its sixth vintage and the house style, which allows the fruit to express itself in a very seductive manner while enhancing the individual qualities of each terroir, has been safely established. Now the management is concentrating on reinforcing their supplybase with some crafty contracts and vineyard purchases in both Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits. We may be able to offer more cuvées in the future, and though opportunities are clearly limited by the 2012 vintage circumstances, we have been well looked after this year.

 

A ludicrously small yield, but it is really good this year. Fine, bright, deep pink and purple with very heady fruit and a vast mouthful of energy, much livelier than in some of the earlier vintages. Strongly recommended. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

The vintage began here on 6th October, once again being short on quantity but with good qualitative potential. Thibault feels that the 2013s can take a long barrel ageing, perhaps up to 24 months. He is using fewer lees, but finer, in order to avoid too many reductive problems.

Only the old vines have been kept back for this bottling of Nuits-St Georges Clos des Grandes Vignes, with 50 per cent whole bunch fermentation giving the wine a dark, brooding character and a powerful, richly fruited finish.

This Nuits-St Georges Lavires from Jean Grivot has a heavenly nose, with a little Vosne-ish perfume sitting on a bedrock of Nuits. There is perfectly integrated oak, making this a really classy wine with beautiful aromatics all the way through.