Tasted in Morey St.Denis with Jacques Devauges, 20 October 2022.

Société du Domaine des Lambrays
31, rue Basse
21220 Morey-Saint-Denis
Tel: +33 3 80 51 84 33
www.lambrays.com
More reports with Clos des Lambrays

At last, the work of extending and renewing the cuverie and cellars at the domaine of Clos des Lambrays is complete. It’s taken a lot of time and, of course, the road in Morey was closed for well over 1 year – but what a job! As Jacques summarises “Yes, it’s been 2 years of work but can now we can hold two vintages at the same time in the cellar. The materials for the work were all local – from the Burgundian Châtillonais for both the stone and the wood. We now use cylindrical wooden tanks instead of the more traditional tronconics (the latter being broader at the base) – after testing the prototypes in the 2020 and 2021 vintages – this newer shape allows a floating cap during the fermentation. There are no pumps, rather there’s a lift for the tanks to be moved between levels when gravity is not enough.

“So in 2019 we began the change to organic farming. In 2020 to biodynamic farming and testing our tank prototypes. In 2022 the work was finished!”

Particularly impressive is the ‘new cellar’ – I use the quotation marks because it’s identical to the old cellar – to which it is joined at one end – but set at 90°.

​Jacques on 2021:
“Our second vintage of biodynamics! Three nights of frost and then vines didn’t move for three weeks. So much rain after brought on much pressure from mildew and oïdium – quite the test! August and September brought okay weather so we could bring in our harvest quite ripe – perhaps only because it was half a harvest! The whites down 85% though. In 2021 there came our new appellations of Vosne 1er Beaumonts and Nuits 1er Richemone with some 1923 vines – the Ruchottes-Chambertin grand cru comes in 2030 when the current exploiter retires but there’s a fermage for them to pay and Lambrays takes grapes as payment so there is a very small négoce cuvée here for that in 2021.”

Some views of ‘new’ Lambrays:

The wines…

An obvious high class to these wines, the Lambrays itself a very covetable wine!

The domaine chose not to show their whites given the very low yields:

2021 Morey St.Denis
Half each of Les Larreys and En la Rue de Vergy (0.7 ha in total), vines above both Lambrays and Tart – all destemmed.
An open, easy red fruit nose – good clarity. Supple, nicely textured, very faintly tannic though almost without grain. Broad with good intensity and perfume in the finish. Very tasty finishing and none of the pyrazines noted at this stage in the 2020.

2021 Morey St.Denis 1er Les Loups
Two origins – half 1er cru (bottom of the slope, deeper soil and warmer too – from Riottes, Sorbet and Le Village) and half young vine Lambrays but at the moment it’s not yet decided how much of the young vines of the Clos will be included (declassified) in(to) this cuvée.
Not a large-scale nose but one with plenty of freshness – open, fine and faintly smoky from the stems. Wider but still open and transparent. The extra perfume is visible in the flavours too. I love the intensity, yet purity, of this finish – red fruit and minerals…