Tasted in Morey St.Denis with Boris Champy at the end of July 2018.
Société du Domaine des Lambrays
31, rue Basse
21220 Morey-Saint-Denis
Tel: +33 3 80 51 84 33
www.lambrays.com
Boris on 2017:
“2017 wasn’t as big a harvest as in 2016 – we made 20 cases less! We have about 38,000 bottles in 2017.
“The harvest started on the 1st September for the premiers and the 4th for the Clos – we finished on the 12th – we stopped when the rain started! We made a rosé from the less ripe grapes of the ‘Clos’ but still had 11.5 degrees – enough to be classed as grand cru, if there was such an appellation!
The wines are ripe and beautiful. June was quite wet and a little cold – not the perfection of the 2015 summer, but overall an excellent growing year.
“The malos finished very early – some were already done in December.”
The wines…
Such an excellent consistency at this domaine – easy to see when you make the short vertical – even the 2014 shows well next to the 2015 and 2016.
Wine A
Good depth of colour. Good weight and depth of aroma. Ooh, a little grain of tannin at the core, but the depth and layers of flavour are delicious – sweet fruit flavour. Modestly mineral finishing…
Wine B
A slightly narrower nose – but more overtly floral – really a forward perfume. Wide, supple, layers of flavour again. Growing weight of flavour, slowly adding the minerality of the last.
B was whole cluster, A destemmed. The final wine will be 90% whole cluster. “Analysis says that there is more tannin in B, but it’s clearly finer too.” I agree!
2017 Clos des Lambrays
90% stems, 50% new oak from François Frères.
Perfumed, more silky, though a slightly less overt nose. Hmm, this has such width and then melting, flavour, more overt oak, but this is a wine with beautiful shape and fine texture. A faint caramel from the oak today. Excellent!
2016 Clos des Lambrays
A wide open nose, showing a little of the stems, but becoming more and more perfumed in the glass. Fresh attack, slowly starting to cover the palate with more and more depth of flavour before peaking with intensity. The 17 is fuller today…
2015 Clos des Lambrays
This aromatic has a different register, but it’s also so perfumed. Not the biggest volume to start but there’s density and energy combined here. Slow moving layers of finishing flavour. Impressive stuff. So good…
2014 Clos des Lambrays
The same perfumed aroma, like the 2016, showing a little more of the stems. Still, a beautiful width of flavour. A hint of stems in the finish, a little extra freshness of flavour after the 2015. This is showing brilliantly!
2003 Clos des Lambrays
Shown blind – I guessed the vintage – sometimes I get lucky!
Hmm, here, is more maturity, forest floor, only slowly growing perfume and spice. Full, round, sweet, complex, lots of tannin, a great freshness (Aug 24-31 harvest, the only harvest finished in August.) This is such a crowd pleaser!