Tasted in Morey St.Denis with Jacques Devauges, 28 November 2023.
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
Jacques on 2023:
“2023 seems a very good year and with almost 40 hl/ha – which is about the average of the last 30 years. 2022 was just over 30 hl/ha – so there’s definitely a little more wine in 2023.”
Jacques on 2022:
“Particularly from June it was an ideal year until a little blockage towards August. Harvesting the reds a couple of days after whites – 1st September for the reds. 22 was the first vintage certified organic for the domaine – including the new wines as they were previously certified.”
The wines…
One of my visits of the vintage – bravo Jacques!
2022 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Folatières
A zesty and attractive nose. Full, mouth-filling but with an airy almost fluid impression to these flavours. They start with a little golden citrus but them melt with a complexity of fine herb and a more complex agrume with faint citrus bitters – long and contemplatively absorbing. I lose myself in this!
2022 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Clos de Caillerets
Larger, rounder, much more perfumed – ooh – that’s a beautiful nose. There’s a tiny reduction – or oak – but this is more direct and more fluid – showing a little extra energy and certainly a vibration of extra flavour. I don’t always prefer Caillerets – but today there’s a more classic tension and energy – very different in style and a beautiful wine.
Whites 4% of the production – now for the other 96%:
2022 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 – ‘there’s never much yield probably as there’s not much soil.’
Silky, with a darker red fruit nose. Nicely mouth-filling, bubbling with energy, classy precision then a rounder, slightly cushioned but delicious finishing expression – and for ‘villages’ this is very long and expressive.
2022 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.
Extra aromatic width with more high-tones – a small cushion of creaminess in support. Just a little more serious concentration – and what breadth and depth to the supporting flavours – length too – that’s a big wine.
Now some new wines:
The smallest 1er of Morey. The Cosson faily had this for many years but now it returns to the domaine… Right in front of the gates of the domaine – brown soil here vs the redder soil of the Clos Sorbet
A very perfumed nose with an increase from 40 to 50% wc here – it’s more visible, but in the best sense. Wonderful, silken, fluid flavour with just 1 mm of cushioning. Voluptuous and ultra-silky – bravo !!!
More airy, perhaps a touch of tobacco aroma. More wiry and flexible, the structure more visible but encased with juicy crystalline red fruit – more direct, more demanding than the Baulet – finishing with extra bitters. You should wait longer for this one – but it’s also a great wine!
Bought in 2021 with La Richemone – frosted in that vintage – there is a little wine from 21 but 22 is the first vintage they are showing. 0.45 ha
Ooh – beautiful small rose blooms for the aroma. Broad, a texture of velour, plenty of concentration too. Impossibly aromatic even in the mouth – wow wine.
A large part planted in 1925. Again, acquired in frosty 2021 so this is the first vintage shown
Very wide, also very perfumed, just a little less depth. A more contemplative wine – it has width but also a more linear character than the Beaumonts – then it explodes wonderfully over the palate. Just a simply gorgeously finishing wine – with only 1 wine to go, one of my visits of the vintage here!
An assembly of 11 cuvées – mixed for this sample.
Less depth of aroma today vs the previous 2 – some tightness today – but still with an amply rewarding complexity. Ultra silky – and direct – the fluidity of a great wine. A wine that in some respects is more compact but then widens and widens over the palate – that’s another really impressive finish, holding in a quiet but haunting fashion – a simply super finish. If it comes out from its shell a little more, I think we could have a great wine. The finish becoming ever-more impressive in the glass.