Tasted in Morey St.Denis with Alessandro Noli, 08 December 2020.
Clos de Tart
7 Route des Grands Crus
21220 Morey St.Denis
Tel: +33 3 80 34 30 91
www.clos-de-tart.com
More reports for Domaine Clos de Tart
As with the Clos des Lambrays, I missed a vintage here so that the new incumbent could get his feet under the desk and make his own wine in 2019 – which wasn’t really the case in 2018.
Allessandro Noli – an ex advocate – took me on a very impressive, deep-dive, into the detail and the type of elevage he considers appropriate; by parcel and by vine age – “It’s the sum of the details that makes the difference,” he says.
Directly when he started at the domaine, Alessandro began the project for a new cuverie – of-course all is within the walls of the clos itself, so this wasn’t going to be on the scale of the large crane dominating Morey St.Denis chez Lambrays. But here it started only with the cuverie – now the other buildings are getting some special treatment too – in 2021 you should lookout for a new tasting room that looks out onto the vines of the clos…
Returning to the new cuverie, there’s an atmosphere, an ambience, that’s special – it’s so calming – dark-wood walls and designer lighting at the centre of the – not so large – room. The room is simply lined with a dozen wooden open-top fermenters – each with their own radiators for heating or cooling – each a different size that corresponds to one particular of the dozen pre-defined terroirs of the clos.
Off the central fermentation room is another with larger stainless-steel tanks for assembling the wines and also the domaine’s new vertical press.
Alessandro explains, “The fermentation tanks are related to the size of the parcels we have delimited. I also did some stainless-steel elevage in 2019 to balance this new wood, and happily, I can see no defects. This work began already in February 2019, the cuverie is not large but still retains an airy feel.”
Jacques Devauges had already begun to reduce the amount of new oak used at the domaine – to 80% – now Alessandro is using more like 55% and he has practically stopped any pigeage which was mandatory in the time of Sylvain Pitiot. They are also now using a vertical press; it’s a large 12 hl model, “It takes plenty of time but the pressure is very low at 0.3 bar.”
The ‘wines’…
Jacques Devauges began the much needed (in my opinion) backing away from the large scale oak tannins in young Clos de Tart, and Alessandro has taken this a step further – and we can see that it is without detriment to the essential Cos de Tart-ness that this terroir brings. I left this tasting feeling very assured about the future of this domaine in Alessandro’s capable hands!
Like many others Alessandro considers 2019 not a vintage for very long elevage, but the bottling will proceed in March for the Forge and probably March-April for the Cos de Tart:
For the first time, instead of mixing in all the parcels, all the young vines of the Clos were separately harvested to make this wine. ‘If the vine is too young to make a proper baguette then it’s young’ – the average is 4-5 years – It’s not a big cuvée – a couple of barrels, to be bottled in January.
Deeply coloured, but the nose reflects the colour – round and deep at the base – aeration bringing more higher-toned expression. Ooh – direct, concentrated but fresh and direct – there’s no fat here. You would not guess that this was a young-vine cuvée. Top villages…
2019 Morey St.Denis 1er Les Forges de Tart
A subtle reduction but with an impressive width at the aromatic base of this wine. Freshness, great attack, a little tannin, but no grain. A consistent intensity – not too much but plenty. A touch of oak in the finishing flavour but less than was once the case. Long finishing. Excellent 1er Cru…
Already assembled in July and then placed back into barrel as the proper cuvée for the last part of the elevage.
Lots of colour. Very faint reduction but already showing a floral component – 10 minutes later and this wine is much more open. Fuller, more tannic – but again without any overt grain – the tannin bringing only a suggestion of dryness. Here is a type of energy and clarity that you don’t usually find in young CdT. Large-scaled in the finish – a small firework display today – surely a larger one as it opens with age. Bravo.
And, as we missed them:
Ooh – that’s a sweeping, large-scaled nose, a little floral. Sweeping again on the palate, quite direct, silky turning to velvet as the tannin rises. Deeply flavoured and very long. This is top-level ‘1er’ – bravo!
A nose that needs a little more active extracting from the glass – starting a little tight. Full on the palate, starting like the Forge but with additional structure and clarity. The tannin is similar, slightly more, but the clarity and definition of this wine is again next level. I find the finish warmly spiced and oh-so complex. Impressively finishing – it will, however, need your patience, Give it some time…