James Suckling (93-94)

This is very St.-Estephe, with blackcurrant, lead pencil, graphite and crushed stone. Medium-bodied, linear and structured. Excellent finish. 64% cabernet sauvignon, 29% merlot, 4% petit verdot and 3% cabernet franc. 13.35% alcohol. 3.75 pH.

Envelop yourself in the rich complexity of the Lafouge Jean & Gilles Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses 2022. Hailing from the sophisticated wine region of Burgundy, France, this Pinot Noir has been cultivated under the expert supervision of the Lafouge family, highly esteemed vignerons. Their traditional, organic farming methods result in full-bodied grapes that imbue the wine with intense varietal character.

Once harvested, the grapes undergo a lengthy fermentation period in wooden barrels, yielding layers of nuanced flavours and a well-rounded tannic structure. The Lafouge Jean & Gilles Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Les Duresses 2022 rewards the palate with notes of ripe red fruit complemented by subtle hints of spice and earthiness, a testament to its terroir. It's an exceptional wine that perfectly encapsulates the skill, tradition, and passion of its producers. It's an unrivalled choice for connoisseurs seeking the authentic taste of Burgundy's boutique vineyards.

James Suckling (96)

Loads of tension and form. It can be cellared for decades, but it’s balanced and beautiful already. Lots of blueberry, licorice and blackberry character. Try in 2018.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

A stunningly successful Lagrange, easily one of the best ever at the property, with complexity, density, and staying power. Combines the exuberant texture of the 2009 with precision and clarity of fruit. The conditions of the vintage meant the smallest size of beries in 35 years, and although the tannins are clearly present they are finessed and sappy. A very young wine, but balanced and seductive, with lush cassis and blackberry fruits. 3.47ph, 60% new oak - this is an upscore from my last tasting of this vintage, but it is really singing. Harvest October 3 to October 24 with a record (since Suntory purchase) 49% of production making it to the 1st wine. Eric Boissenot consultant.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

A stunningly successful Lagrange, easily one of the best ever at the property, with complexity, density, and staying power. Combines the exuberant texture of the 2009 with precision and clarity of fruit. The conditions of the vintage meant the smallest size of beries in 35 years, and although the tannins are clearly present they are finessed and sappy. A very young wine, but balanced and seductive, with lush cassis and blackberry fruits. 3.47ph, 60% new oak - this is an upscore from my last tasting of this vintage, but it is really singing. Harvest October 3 to October 24 with a record (since Suntory purchase) 49% of production making it to the 1st wine. Eric Boissenot consultant.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

A stunningly successful Lagrange, easily one of the best ever at the property, with complexity, density, and staying power. Combines the exuberant texture of the 2009 with precision and clarity of fruit. The conditions of the vintage meant the smallest size of beries in 35 years, and although the tannins are clearly present they are finessed and sappy. A very young wine, but balanced and seductive, with lush cassis and blackberry fruits. 3.47ph, 60% new oak - this is an upscore from my last tasting of this vintage, but it is really singing. Harvest October 3 to October 24 with a record (since Suntory purchase) 49% of production making it to the 1st wine. Eric Boissenot consultant.

Wine Advocate (93-95+)

Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2018 Lagrange opens a little closed and broody, slowly revealing cedar chest, tar, pencil shavings, camphor and fragrant earth scents with a baked plums and warm cassis core plus a hint of yeast extract. Full-bodied and jam-packed with black fruits and earthy accents, it has a solid frame of firm, chunky tannins and just enough freshness, finishing on a persistent mineral note.

Decanter (96)

Lovely deep red pink rim to the glass. Such freshness and floral lift on the nose, smells lively and welcoming with a cool blue fruit touch to the aromas alongside faint hints of liquorice. Amazing texture and mouthfeel - filling with a good density of chalky and textured tannins underpinning creamy red fruits with a juicy acidity that is so succulent and mouthwatering. Just giving everything - abundant, generous lively fruit, creamy velvet-textured tannins, bright acidity and gorgeous Cabernet aspects. Round and complete, excellent winemaking on show.

James Suckling (95-96)

Absolutely beautiful with blackberry, walnut, crushed-stone and lavender character. It’s full-bodied and very layered with ultra fine tannins and an extremely long finish. Really well done for the vintage. Best in a long time.

Jeb Dunnuck (93)

Showing better from bottle than barrels, the 2021 Château Lagrange has a healthy ruby/purple hue to go with a gorgeous nose of blackcurrants, violets, chalky minerality, and graphite. It's rich, medium-bodied, has a concentrated, layered mouthfeel, beautiful tannins, and a great finish. It's a seriously impressive, layered, concentrated 2021 with tons to love. The blend is 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot, aged 21 months in 50% new barrels. Give bottles 2-4 years and enjoy over the following 15+.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (96)

Continuing a run of exceptional vintages where everything seems to be going right at this property. High Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, and it comes across in the sleek black fruits and peony character, very much floral and finessed. Good stuff, this is impressive, enjoyable, very St Julien and very good. 50% new oak for ageing, Eric Boissenot consultant, Mathieu Bordes director since 2013.

Jeb Dunnuck (97)

The flagship from a 7-acre parcel in the estate vineyard, the 2016 Cahors Le Pigeonnier is another Pomerol look-alike with its beautiful bouquet of black cherries, blueberries, damp earth, white chocolate, and exotic spices. As with all these 2016s, it’s a ripe, powerful, opulent wine that doesn’t pull any punches, yet always stays balanced, elegant, and remarkably fresh. Made from 100% Malbec aged two years in new French oak, it builds beautifully with time in the glass, has a deep, layered mid-palate, and a blockbuster finish. It’s possibly the finest Cahors I’ve ever tasted and would pass undetected in a blind lineup of top Napa Cabernets. While it’s no doubt beautiful today, I suspect it will develop even more nuance and complexity with 3-4 years of bottle age and keep for 15-20 years.

The first output from future Piemonte superstars Lara Rocchetti & Luisa Sala - the LaLu Barbera d’Alba 2019 - is one of the most interesting wines of the vintage and easily a wine worth seeking out, whether you usually drink Piemonte or steer towards other regions for your daily drinking wines. Priced extremely well for a quality Barbera, there is added glamour to this wine in that it comes from one of the great terroirs of Piemonte, grown entirely in the Monforte section of the Bussia cru.

Courtesy of that sublime terroir, this is a wine that boasts clear Monforte signatures of explosive violet, tart blackberry and sloe with a deep purplish hue, such that it walks a remarkably fine line appealing to a new world palate while staying true to one of Barolo’s great terroirs. It is rich in colour and personality, yet so fresh, lithe and weightless. As Barbera goes this is just about perfect, a new benchmark for the variety showing what can happen when a wine with good pedigree is lovingly honed to perfection.

Only 2,000 bottles made.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (92-94)

A little more depth of cherry red colour here and a delicate but charming bouquet. Builds to the back, a little smokiness and a touch of pepper, a gracious and quite delicate Echezeaux of middling intensity but some length.

Vinous (95)

The 2016 La Grande Rue Grand Cru has a very pure, almost pastille-like bouquet with copious red cherry fruit mixed with crushed strawberry and a little cassis. La Grande Rue? [Post script: Bingo!] The palate is very pretty with fine-grain tannin. This is surfeit with freshness and vitality, although it does not quite have the depth and structure of other Grand Crus from the appellation. It does fan out towards the finish. The persistence, and the saline aftertaste are very appealing. Excellent. Tasted blind at the 2016 Burgfest tasting.

Vinous (96)

The 2017 La Grande Rue has a deep, introspective bouquet, offering more black fruit than red; touches of oyster shell and seaweed percolate through with time. The palate is where the quality shines through, in the filigreed tannins and the wonderful sense of symmetry. Fresh as a daisy without compromising intensity, especially on the pixelated finish, which seems to go on forever. Brilliant. This far exceeded my expectations. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2017 tasting.

Vinous (96)

The 2017 La Grande Rue has a deep, introspective bouquet, offering more black fruit than red; touches of oyster shell and seaweed percolate through with time. The palate is where the quality shines through, in the filigreed tannins and the wonderful sense of symmetry. Fresh as a daisy without compromising intensity, especially on the pixelated finish, which seems to go on forever. Brilliant. This far exceeded my expectations. Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2017 tasting.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (94-98)

Perfect fresh mid red to purple in colour. There is an extra distinction to the bouquet, with a touch of spice and a little bit of blood orange. Very nuanced this year. Sweetly harmonious across the middle of the palate, iron-rich at the finish, supple and extremely persistent. Long, harmonious, with a silky touch.

Tim Atkin MW (97)

Nicole is thrilled that La Grande Rue is producing at 80% of its capacity, even in this dry vintage. Of course, much less is made of this old vine cuv e – only two barrels. This has a touch more blush in its color than its counterpart. It's also showing some reduction so less perfumed at the moment. There's a strong flint note followed by pretty rose petals then sweet strawberries. The texture is marvellous, feeling of pure silk. Medium-bodied with integrated lift and soign  tannins, this is seriously stylish. 2022-40

Wine Advocate (85)

The 2015 Vosne Romanee 1er Cru les Suchots offers up aromas of plums, cassis and spice, followed by a medium-bodied, rather inscrutable palate without any real discernible concentration or depth. Perhaps the wine is simply closed down after bottling and will emerge from its shell with age?

Wine Advocate (95)

The 2015 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru continues to show very well, unfurling in the glass with a rich bouquet of ripe plums, blackberries, dark chocolate and forest floor. On the palate, it's full-bodied, satiny and powerful, with an ample chassis of fine structuring tannins and a deep core of fruit, but the wine is shutting down and is more inscrutable than it was six months earlier. Readers with bottles in their cellars are sitting on a great example of Clos des Lambrays, one of the best produced since the 1970s, but a decade's patience is advised.

Jancis Robinson (18)

Transparent garnet – one of the lightest wines so far. Very pretty and extremely fragrant and winning. Gentle with resolved tannins and perhaps a little more freshness than some but a real charmer. After some raspberry fruit there is an undertow of structure and perhaps a note of orange peel? Lots of juicy fruit but with real delicacy. Quite deceptive because you could drink this straight away but it clearly has the structure for a long life.

Jancis Robinson (18)

60 m difference in height between the top and the bottom of the Clos. 50% new and 50% second-use barrel. 90% whole bunch (some years 100%). Will be racked to tank at the end of December. Once in cuve it is stable so there is no hurry to bottle. Must have at least a month in tank to stabilise so they will bottle February –April. Bottling best in March or October – never too cold or hot. No filtration. They bottle with descending moon when the wine is more still. Beautifully, darkly aromatic with plenty of peppery spice. Woody rather than oaky. There’s freshness from the tannins as well as from the acidity and the texture is so silky on the mid palate yet with power on the finish. Refined, flowing, dry and long. Handsome beauty and so easy to taste even with the underlying intensity and power. There’s just a very slight hint of stems but not OTT. Dark elegance.

Vinous (97)

The 2018 Clos des Lambrays Grand Cru does not quite have the amplitude of Magnien's Clos Saint-Denis, but it displays more vivacious red fruit, clarifying with aeration and eventually develops quite an ethereal quality. The palate is beautifully balanced with sappy red fruit laced with white pepper, sage and graphite notes. Superb structure on the finish - quintessentially Morey-Saint-Denis with wonderful sappiness. Bon vin! Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2018 red tasting.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (96-98)

(5-Star Wine) I tasted five of the 11 individual parcellaire cuvées – everything makes it in to the final blend except for the young vine block notes in the Morey 1er Cru. Jacques is adamant that the final wine should respect the totality of the Clos. Then we tried the blend: already, this seems to have taken on a deeper colour than any of the individual cuvees. Deep dense dark fruit, with a powerful underlying dark raspberry with some more lifted rose petal notes. Probably 85% whole bunch overall but the power of the fruit stops this taking the lead. It does underpin the whole though, especially on the palate, while there is also a crystalline limestone purity behind the sweetly ripe red berry fruit. The 2020 Lambrays has more heart to it than most vintages I have tasted in barrel. There is a fine long finish, a little liquorice touch, a complex and ageworthy Lambrays. Delicacy with a strong tensile thread. Tannins by analysis are very significant but you don’t see them. From now on, the wine will spend a second winter in barrel each year. I toyed with not giving the wine 5 stars, to leave the new team something to aim at, but the wine merits the top classification. Tasted: December 2021

Decanter (2027-2050)

It is hard to overstate my enthusiasm for this wine, with its impressive ripeness, plump, plummy fruit with notes of black cherry and liquorice. The texture is densely structured, firm but not hard, and long but not heavy. There is still the freshness and finesse to make this among the best wines of the vintage. This is the reunion of all the old-vine parcels in the Clos and a pretty convincing argument for director Jacques Devauges’ assertion that Lambrays is the pinnacle of Morey-St-Denis.

Decanter (2027-2050)

It is hard to overstate my enthusiasm for this wine, with its impressive ripeness, plump, plummy fruit with notes of black cherry and liquorice. The texture is densely structured, firm but not hard, and long but not heavy. There is still the freshness and finesse to make this among the best wines of the vintage. This is the reunion of all the old-vine parcels in the Clos and a pretty convincing argument for director Jacques Devauges’ assertion that Lambrays is the pinnacle of Morey-St-Denis.

Decanter (2027-2050)

It is hard to overstate my enthusiasm for this wine, with its impressive ripeness, plump, plummy fruit with notes of black cherry and liquorice. The texture is densely structured, firm but not hard, and long but not heavy. There is still the freshness and finesse to make this among the best wines of the vintage. This is the reunion of all the old-vine parcels in the Clos and a pretty convincing argument for director Jacques Devauges’ assertion that Lambrays is the pinnacle of Morey-St-Denis.