Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru rouge AOC 2023

A coolly etched Pinot Noir with dark berry fruit and a velvety grip. The fifty-year-old vines and clay-rich soil give it depth and a structure that rewards patience. With their very first vintage under their own name, 2020, the brothers already showed how precisely they work.

Auxey-Duresses lies between Saint-Romain and Meursault and is regarded by some connoisseurs as an underrated heart of the Côte de Beaune: a cooler basin that produces upright Pinot. The grapes come from the Écussaux and Grands Champs vineyards. The 1.8 hectares around Auxey-Duresses came into the family through Justine, Louis Trapet's wife, whose family home lies at the foot of the Montagne du Châtelet. It took the two brothers four or five years to bring these barely tended plots back into shape.

Pure Pinot Noir. In the vineyard, ploughing instead of herbicide, biodynamic farming, hand-harvesting and early-limited yields. Vinification takes place in the family cellar in Gevrey-Chambertin, a former Relais de Poste, where concrete eggs stand alongside wooden casks and demi-muids. The wine ages unfined and is bottled unfiltered.

Dry, 12.5% Vol., with silky tannin. Dark cherry and forest berries carry the wine, followed by violet and undergrowth; the finish stays long and taut. When opened young, generous decanting pays off.

Coq au vin, duck breast with cherries or rack of lamb with an herb crust. Equally good with partridge, mushroom ragout and a mature Époisses.

The newest address of a family that has been making wine in Burgundy since 1915: Pierre vinifies in Riquewihr in Alsace, Louis in Gevrey-Chambertin, with the shared estate lying halfway between. On the label, colourful rings intertwine; among winegrowers, the project is known as Trapet².